CdM | The economic recovery in the eurozone gained momentum in May. “It seems that the results could not have been better”. The PMI index “reveals that the euro area economy is strengthening further”. Indeed, the pace of expansion was solid, accelerating for the second month in a row to the fastest in twelve months.
The overall expansion was again driven by the services sector, with business activity increasing for the fourth consecutive month. Meanwhile, manufacturing output continued to fall, extending the current sequence of decline to fourteen months. However, the pace of contraction was only marginal and continued to ease to its weakest level of this period of decline.
Thus, the flash of the seasonally adjusted composite PMI index of total euro area activity rose from 51.7 in April to 52.3 in May and signalled a pick-up in business activity in the euro area private sector as a whole for the third consecutive month.
This period of renewed growth has followed a sequence of sustained declines in the second half of 2023 and early 2024, notes Hamburg Commercial Bank, which believes that “we are heading in the right direction”.
