HispanicBusiness

The euro area economy did not grow at all in the first three months of the year, the European Union said Wednesday, confirming preliminary estimates.

On a quarterly basis, gross domestic product (GDP) in the 17-member single currency bloc was unchanged (0.0 percent), the bloc's statistics office Eurostat said.

Economic activity within the 27-member E.U. was also flat.

On an annual basis, eurozone figures were slightly worse than expected. On May 15, Eurostat said annual growth also stood at 0.0 percent. But on Wednesday, it said that GDP had actually decreased by 0.1 percent.

For the wider E.U., the 0.1 percent growth forecast was unchanged.

The figures indicated that the eurozone had narrowly escaped a technical recession, which is commonly defined as negative quarterly growth for two consecutive quarters.

In the last three months of 2011, eurozone GDP contracted by 0.3 percent. Most economists expect the currency bloc to slip back to negative growth in the second quarter of 2012.