Late-2000s recession in Europe

Total credit in Greece shrank 1.3 percent year-on-year in January, with the pace of decline slowing from the previous month, Bank of Greece data showed on Thursday.

Credit extended to the government rose 8.6 percent after rising 7.3 percent in December, the central bank said. Lending to businesses and households declined by 2.9 percent, from a 3.1 percent drop in December.

By Sotiris Nikas

The Greek economy came out of a six-year recession in 2014, growing by an annual rate of 0.82 percent last year, according to provisional estimates by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) published on Friday. Yet early signs of the course of the economy in the first quarter of this year are generating concern.

BELGRADE - Serbia registered a 3.6-percent real GDP drop in the third quarter of 2014 relative to the same period last year, as well as a 1.3-percent drop in the second quarter, revised figures from the Serbian statistical office show.

Eurozone industrial production fell more than expected in August, mainly because of a slump in the output of capital goods that are used for investment, data from the European Union's statistics office Eurostat showed on Tuesday.

 Jobless rate and prices drop as arrivals, cars and retail sales rise

A surge of encouraging figures and statistics on Wednesday and Thursday has pointed to the country’s return to growth, vindicating the government’s forecast that Greece’s gross domestic product would expand by 0.5-0.6 percent in 2014.

The latest International Monetary Fund forecast on joblessness in Greece revised the expected level of unemployment for this year down to 25.8 percent from 26.3 percent six months ago, and the figure for 2015 to 23.8 percent from 24.4 percent in April.

Greek unemployment dipped slightly in June to 27 percent from May's figure of 27.1 percent but the crisis-hit country still has the highest jobless rate in the European Union, figures published on Tuesday by the EU's statistical agency, Eurostat, showed.

The eurozone's trade surplus rose year-on-year in July as exports grew faster than imports, pointing to a positive contribution to economic growth at the start of the third quarter, the European Union's Statistics office data showed.

Bulgaria's unemployment rate has dropped for a seventh consecutive month, reaching 10.4% in August, down by 0.2 percentage points on a monthly basis.

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Seasonally adjusted GDP remained stable in the euro area and rose by 0.2% in the EU in the second quarter of 2014, compared with the previous quarter, according to second estimates published by Eurostat.