France maintains growth forecast despite EU estimate
(PARIS) - France stuck by its 2013 growth forecast of 0.8 percent on Thursday despite a sharply lower estimate by the European Commission, as the French trade deficit narrowed slightly in September.
The French economy, the eurozone's second biggest, should expand by 0.8 percent next year, the finance and budget ministers said after the Commission released its own forecast for growth of just 0.4 percent.
Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac told Europe 1 radio that France would also meet its target of cutting the public deficit to 3.0 percent of gross domestic product, the EU limit, in 2013.
In its autumn forecast, the Commission estimated that France would run a public deficit of 3.5 percent in both 2013 and 2014.
Cahuzac told Europe 1 that the European Union's executive branch "did not see the 2008 crisis coming, we might be able to think they do not see the rebound coming."
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told media in Lyon, central France, that the EU Commission did not have "all the data at hand" and added: "I am a little more optimistic than it is, because we have a solid and credible economic policy."
Meanwhile, the French customs service said that the French trade deficit decreased by a modest 200 million euros ($250 million) in September from the previous month, to 5.033 billion euros.
On a 12-month basis, the deficit came to 67.282 billion euros, below the figure for all of 2011 of 73.3 billion, the data showed.
French exports nontheless slipped in September, as "a new surge in aerospace and space deliveries and a good performance in the pharmaceutical sector did not compensate for a generalised decline among other products," the service said.
Imports fell even faster however, resulting in a smaller deficit.
The French government unveiled on Tuesday a plan to improve the competitive edge of French companies as Paris tries to correct a corrosive weakness of French industry.
France promised tax breaks for businesses worth up to 20 billion euros a year aimed at offsetting high payroll taxes that have hobbled French companies in the eurozone and beyond.