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OPINION

Next week's economics: 8-12 Feb

Next week's economics: 8-12 Feb
February 4, 2016
Next week's economics: 8-12 Feb

On Friday, Eurostat could report that GDP grew by just 0.2 per cent in the eurozone in the fourth quarter. This would be the sixth successive quarter in which the economy has grown by between 0.2 and 0.4 per cent, which might suggest that trend growth is only around 1 per cent.

One more recent reason for such anaemic performance is of course that China's economy has slowed. Germany, being especially exposed among European economies to China, has particularly suffered from this: Monday's figures could show that industrial production there fell by around 0.7 per cent in the fourth quarter.

There is, however, a reason for hope here. Thursday's figures from the People's Bank of China should show that the growth rate of narrow money has accelerated since the summer - from 2-4 per cent then to around 15 per cent now. This is good news because this growth has for years been a good leading indicator of Chinese output and commodity prices. If past relationships continue to hold, this points to a recovery in both in the spring.

The UK economy, however, should be doing a little better than the eurozone. The NIESR could estimate on Wednesday that GDP grew by around 0.6 per cent in the three months to January. Give or take a tenth of a percentage point, this is much the same growth we've had in the last 12 months.

This growth isn't because of a strong industrial performance: if official figures on Wednesday are consistent with last week's provisional GDP numbers, they'll show that manufacturing output was flat in the fourth quarter. Instead, it owes a lot to growth in services and retail. On Tuesday, the British Retail Consortium could say that sales in January were around 3 per cent up in volume terms year on year. Interpretation of this, however, might be complicated by the fact that the BRC's reports have recently been a little more downbeat than figures from the ONS or CBI.

In the US, Friday's usually important retail sales numbers will probably be depressed by the recent blizzard on the east coast. A less-distorted image of the economy might come from job openings data on Wednesday, which could show that job vacancies are close to their highest level since data began in 2000. Optimists will see this as auguring well for consumer spending. Pessimists will take it as a sign that productivity growth has slowed.