Today out focus shifts to the second largest economy in the Euro area as La Belle France takes centre stage. Let us open with the thoughts of the finance minister on the economic state of play.
PARIS (Reuters) – Recent economic indicators for France are satisfactory but too fragile to change the forecast for an 11% economic contraction this year, Bruno Le Maire said Thursday.
The Minister of the Economy, speaking to the National Assembly for the debate on the orientation of public finances for 2021, said he expected economic growth of 8% for France next year and expressed the will that the in 2022, activity returns to its levels preceding the crisis linked to the new coronavirus.
Only a politician could use the words “satisfactory” and “too fragile” in the same sentence and it is a grim one of a 11% decline in GDP ( Gross Domestic Product) for this year. This means that the expectations for France are worse than those for the Euro area as a whole.
The expectations of SPF respondents for euro area real GDP growth averaged -8.3%, 5.7% and 2.4% for 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. ( ECB 16th July)
So around 3% worse which is interesting and I note that there is a similar pattern of predicting most but far from all of it returning in 2021. That is what you call making a forecast that is like an each-way bet where if you do recover no-one will care and if you do worse than that you highlight you did not expect a full recovery. The truth is that none of us know how 2020 will finish let alone what will happen next year. Maybe the quote below suffers from translation from French but “expressed the will?”
expressed the will that the in 2022, activity returns to its levels preceding the crisis
What does that mean? So let us move on knowing 2020 will be bad with a likely double-digit fall in economic output.
Right Here, Right Now
This morning has brought the latest in the long-running official survey on the economy.
In July 2020, the business climate has continued its recovery started in May. The indicator that synthesizes it, calculated from the responses of business managers from the main market sectors, has gained 7 points. At 85, the business climate is however still significantly below its long-term average (100), and a fortiori below its relatively high pre-lockdown level (105).
The ending of the lockdown has seen a welcome rally of 7 points but sadly only to 85% of the long-term average. If we look back though I note it was recording a relatively high 105 which makes me mull this.
In Q1 2020, real gross domestic product (GDP)* fell sharply: -5.3% after -0.1% in Q4 2019, thus a revision of +0.5% compared with the first estimate published in April.
I think the relevant number is the contraction in the last quarter of 2019 and how does that relate to a relatively high reading. As the fall is only 0.1% we could argue the economy was flat lining but we still have a measure recording growth when there wasn’t any.
Going back to the survey we see a similar pattern but weaker number for employment.
In July 2020, the employment climate has continued to recover sharply from the April low. At 77, it has gained 10 points compared to June, but it still remains far below its pre-lockdown level.
Manufacturing
The position here is particularly bad.
According to the business managers surveyed in July 2020, the business climate in industry has continued to improve. The composite indicator has gained 4 points compared to June, after losing 30 points in April due to the health crisis. However, at 82, it remains far below its long term average (100).
Looking ahead the order book does not look exactly auspicious either.
In July 2020, slightly fewer industrialists than in June have declared their order books to be below normal. The balances of opinion on total and foreign order books have very slightly recovered. Both stand at very low levels although slightly higher than in 2009.
If we look back this measure had a recent peak around 112 as 2018 began. This represented quite a rally compared to the dips below 90 seen at times in 2012 and 13. But after that peak it began slip-sliding away to around 100 and now well you can see above.
Saving
Whilst debt hits the headlines the breakdown of the GDP data shows that it is not the only thing going on.
At the same time, household consumption fell (-5.6% after +0.3%), resulting in a sharp rise of the saving rate to 19.6% after 15.1% in Q4 2019.
The pandemic has seen higher levels of saving which has two drivers I think. Firstly many simply could not spend their money as so many outlets closed. Next those who can look like they have been indulging in some precautionary saving which is something of a disaster for supporters of negative interest-rates.
National Debt
Having just looked at ying here is part of the yang.
In Q1 2020 the public deficit increased by 1.1 points: 4.8% of GDP after 3.7% in Q4 2019.
So we see that pandemic France was borrowing more and regular readers will have noted this from past articles. For the year as a whole France had its nose pressed against the Growth and Stability Pact threshold of 3% of GDP. I know some of you measure an economy by tax receipts so they were 1.275 trillion in 2019.
Moving to the national debt we see this.
At the end of Q1 2020, Maastricht’s debt reached €2,438.5 billion, a €58.4 billion increase in comparison to Q4 2019. It accounted for 101.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), 3.1 points higher than last quarter, the highest increase since Q2 2019.
Looking ahead this is the view of the Bank of France.
As a result of the wider deficit and the fall in GDP, government debt should rise substantially to 119% of GDP in 2020, from 98.1% in 2019, and should scarcely decline over the rest of the projection horizon. The average debt-to-GDP ratio for the euro area should also increase in parallel, but to a more limited extent (to 101% of GDP in 2022, easing to 100% by end-2022).
Comment
There are some familiar patterns of a sharp drop in economic output followed by plenty of rhetoric about a sharp recovery next year. However the surveys we have looked at show a very partial recovery so far so that the “V-shaped” hopium users find themselves singing along with Bonnie Tyler.
I was lost in France
In the fields the birds were singing
I was lost in France
And the day was just beginning
Switching to the mounting debt burden it is a clear issue in terms of capital and if you like the weight of the debt. Also estimates of economies at around 120% of GDP went spectacularly wrong in the Euro area crisis. But in terms of debt costs then with a ten-year yield of -0.19% France is often being paid to issue debt. Although care is needed because the ECB does not buy ultra long bonds ( 30 years is its limit) meaning that France has a fifty-year bond yield of 0,58%. We should not forget that even the latter is very cheap, especially in these circumstances.
Also there is this from the head of the ECB Christine Lagarde.
In my interview with @IgnatiusPost
, I explained that price stability and climate change are closely related. Consequently, we must take climate-related risks into account in our central banking activities.