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Italy's economy stagnated in the fourth quarter of last year, marking the 14th consecutive quarter without any growth as an increase in exports was offset by weak domestic demand, data showed on Friday.
Gross domestic productwas unchanged quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter, following a 0.1 contraction in the third, and dropped 0.3 percent on an annual basis, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.
That just beat an average forecast of a 0.1 percent fallquarter-on-quarter, down 0.4 percent annually, in a Reuters survey of 31 analysts.
Over the whole of 2014 GDP fell 0.4 percent on a work-day adjusted basis, the third consecutive decline after contractions of 1.9 percent in 2013 and 2.3 percent in2012.
Earlier on Friday, Germany reported a strong 0.7 percent quarterly GDP rise for the fourth quarter, while French GDP edged up 0.1 percent.
ISTAT marginally revised third quarter data to show a 0.4 percent annual decline, originally reportedas -0.5 percent, while the 0.1 percent quarterly fall was unrevised.
ISTAT gave no numerical breakdown of GDP components with its preliminary estimate.
However it said exports had made a positive contribution to GDP, while domestic demand had been negative. It also said that services had expanded while industry and agriculture had contracted.
The GDP carry-over going into 2015 stood at a negative 0.1 percent. This means that if GDP posts flat quarterly readings in each quarter of 2015, overthe whole year it will be down 0.1 percent from 2014.
ISTAT gave the following details:
Q4 2014 Q3 2014 Q2 2014
Q/Q (pct change) 0.0 -0.1 -0.2
Y/Y (pct change) -0.3 -0.4r -0.4
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