Saturday 17 June 2006

US consumer sentiment up, European industrial output down, China tightens

The US economy received some good news yesterday. From Reuters:

The University of Michigan's preliminary June index of consumer sentiment read 82.4, up from May's final reading of 79.1 and above Wall Street expectations for a reading of 79.0...

Before the June sentiment data's release, the Commerce Department said the U.S. current account deficit -- which measures international transactions as well as physical imports and exports -- narrowed more than expected in the first quarter to $208.7 billion, as exports rose more than imports.

But the news from Europe was not so good. From Eurostat:

Seasonally adjusted industrial production fell by 0.6% in the euro area in April 2006 compared to March. Production grew by 0.6% in March after remaining stable in February. Output in the EU25 fell by 0.1% in April, after increasing by 0.5% in March and remaining stable in February.

In April 2006 compared to April 2005, industrial production rose by 1.9% in the euro area and by 2.1% in the EU25.

Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China has -- not surprisingly after the recent economic data -- decided to raise its reserve requirement for commercial banks by 0.5 percentage points to eight percent from July 5.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

so the move in china was basically to maintain the development of their economy..which, in seeing how the increase in credit could possibly lead to inflation in china, could only be a good thing.

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