FILE PHOTO: The financial district with the headquarters of Germany's largest business bank, Deutsche Bank (C), is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt, Germany, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The euro zone economy continued to grow at a modest pace in the July-September period as expected, data from the EU statistics office showed on Thursday, as Germany narrowly escaped a technical recession and other big economies expanded.

The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said gross domestic product in the 19 countries sharing the euro increased 0.2% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter for a 1.2% year-on-year gain.

The quarterly expansion was in line with a Eurostat preliminary flash estimate earlier this month and market expectations, although the previous year-on-year figure was 1.1%.

Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy, grew 0.1% in the third quarter after a -0.2% contraction in the previous three months, so avoiding a technical recession.

France, the second biggest economy grew by 0.3% in the third quarter against the previous three months and the third biggest Italy expanded 0.1%. Spain and the Netherlands, the fourth and fifth biggest economies of the bloc, each grew by 0.4%.