Italy final Q1 GDP up 0.3 pct vs Q4; revised up vs preliminary data

Jun 8, 2007 - Italian final GDP rose 0.3 pct in the first quarter from the fourth, compared to the 0.2 pct rise previously released in preliminary data on May 15, statistics office ISTAT said.

Final first-quarter GDP rose 2.3 pct year-on-year, unchanged from the preliminary data, ISTAT said.

The first-quarter data is adjusted for seasonal variations and the number of working days. The first quarter had three working days more than in the fourth quarter and the same number as the first three months of 2006.

Economists polled by Thomson Financial had forecast a 0.1 pct rise quarter-on-quarter and a 2.2 pct annual gain.

In the fourth quarter, the Italian economy grew by 1.1 pct from the third quarter and by 2.8 pct year-on-year.

Australia 3 mths to March GDP up 1.6 pct vs 1.1 pct in Dec qtr

Jun 5, 2007 - Gross domestic product in the three months to March rose by a seasonally adjusted 1.6 pct and was up 3.6 pct year-on-year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.

The quarterly outcome was the strongest growth since the December quarter of 2003 and was well above the economist consensus forecast for first quarter GDP growth of 1.2 pct.

The ABS said three months to December GDP growth was an adjusted 1.1 pct, revised up from the previous estimate of 1.0 pct growth.

The bureau said that in seasonally adjusted terms, the increase in GDP in the March quarter was a result of positive contributions from private business investment, up 1.2 percentage points, which was affected by the privatization of telco Telstra.

Household final consumption expenditure rose 0.9 percentage points over the quarter.

It said this growth was offset by negative contributions from the imports of goods and services which fell 0.5 percentage points from the fourth quarter.

In seasonally adjusted terms, the strongest contributions to growth were from the construction and finance/insurance industries, both up 0.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, along with a number of other industries contributing 0.1 percentage points.

The ABS said this growth was offset by negative contributions from the manufacturing, electricity, gas and water supply sectors which fell 0.1 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.