Euro zone growth almost ground to a halt as Germany's economy flirted with recession in the closing stages of 2004, but shoppers in France and Spain rescued the region to ensure 2 per cent growth for the year as a whole.
But the news was worrying for the year ahead, with the European statistics office Eurostat reporting 0.2 per cent GDP euro zone growth in the fourth quarter, after a July-September period that was supposed to have been the bad patch.
The surprisingly bad German news came in an early morning report by the Federal Statistics Office that Europe's largest economy shrank 0.2 per cent in the last three months of 2004, and that output was flat in the third quarter.
Italy too dipped into the red unexpectedly, with a 0.3 per cent quarterly contraction in gross domestic product reported by statistics office ISTAT, far lower than expected and leaving growth for the year as a whole at 1.1 per cent.
The Netherlands announced a 0.1 per cent quarterly decrease in GDP for the last three months of 2004, also a surprise dip.