“Euro area manufacturers enjoyed their strongest growth so far this year in June. An upturn in the rate of production growth signals factory output is expanding at a near-2% annual pace, which should help to drive further modest economic growth in the second quarter. New orders and exports* also rose at faster rates, prompting a welcome upturn in hiring.
“However, the data were collected prior to the UK EU referendum result, so any Brexit impact is yet to be seen in the PMI. “The PMI would have likely been even higher had it not been for strikes in France, which look to have disrupted business activity in many cases.
With Greece enjoying a welcome return to growth, France was the only country to see a deterioration in manufacturing conditions in June.
All other countries saw faster rates of expansion except the Netherlands. “Given the uncertainty caused by the prospect of Brexit, it seems likely that business and consumer spending will be adversely affected across the euro area in the short term at least, pulling growth down in coming months.”
