French recovery seen struggling to pick up speed
PARIS (Reuters) - The French economy is set to eke out meagre growth in the first three months of the year, the central bank said on Monday, as a hesitant recovery struggles to gain momentum.
In a first estimate, the Bank of France estimated that the euro zone's second-biggest economy would grow 0.2 percent in the first three months from the last quarter of 2013.
That would mark a slowdown from the 0.5 percent the central bank has estimated the 2-trillion-euro ($2.7 trillion) economy grew in the final quarter of last year.
The INSEE official statistic agency publishes fourth-quarter gross domestic product on Friday and economists polled by Reuters expect growth on average of 0.2 percent.
In a good sign for the fourth quarter, INSEE said on Monday that industrial production rose 0.3 percent over the final three months of 2014 although output unexpectedly fell in December on weak refining and food production.
France increasingly stands out among its euro zone partners for the weakness of its recovery as President Francois Hollande struggles to engineer a turnaround.
Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said last week the French economy was on course to grow 0.9 percent this year - in line with the government's estimate.
He estimated in a newspaper interview that a plan by Hollande to phase out 30 billion euros in corporate charges by 2017 could add a further one percentage point to growth over two to three years.
The French central bank gave its forecast in its latest business sentiment survey which showed that morale in the industrial sector was unchanged in January at 99, just below its long-term average of 100.
Meanwhile, confidence in the services sector improved slightly, rising to 94 from 93 in December and reaching its highest level in nearly two years.
Both industrial and services companies reported that they expected business to pick up this month.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Brian Love and Elizabeth Piper)
