(Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s economic growth accelerated in the second quarter while Belgium kept expanding, positive omens for euro-zone data due this week.
Irish gross domestic product rose 1.2% in the three months through June, after an increase of 0.7% in the prior period, the statistics agency in Dublin said on Monday. Belgian momentum slowed slightly, with a reading of 0.2%.
Ireland’s role as a tax base for US multinationals leads to huge swings between growth or contraction that can sometimes influence the overall result for the region. Despite being one of the euro area’s smaller economies, its data have recently had an out-sized effect on expansion when the bloc itself has largely stagnated.
Irish statisticians attributed second-quarter momentum to the country’s international industrial companies.
The numbers could potentially support expectations of forecasters that the euro zone kept expanding in the quarter. The median estimate is for a 0.2% increase in GDP, down from 0.3% at the start of the year. Those data will be released on Tuesday along with statistics from the currency area’s biggest economies.
Meanwhile there was bad news out of Latvia, one of the euro area’s smallest members. It contracted 1.1%, snapping three quarters of growth.
--With assistance from Mark Evans, Barbara Sladkowska and Giovanni Salzano.
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