The euro zone economy still continues recovering at a sluggish pace. The purchasing managers' index for the manufacturing sector remained at 52.4 in August. Its services counterpart improved slightly to 54.3 from 54.0. The data also supports an unchanged pace of growth expectation in H2. It is likely that the majority of analysts and of the ECB, which expect growth to accelerate, will soon revise their growth forecasts for this year downwards. In September, the central bank will probably lower its growth projection for 2015 from 1.5% to 1.4%.



Despite massively lower energy prices and the weak euro, the economy in the euro zone only expanded modestly in H1 (on average by 0.3% per quarter). And prospects for H2 are no better. For one thing, the stimuli from the euro's depreciation and the decline in crude oil prices are gradually fading. For another, headwinds from emerging markets are threatening to become stronger. Unlike the majority of analysts and of the ECB, in the second half of this year the euro zone economy will not grow more quickly than in the first six months, suspects Commerzbank.



"But even this figure would still be higher than our forecast of 1.2%. We continue to assume that the central bank is more likely to increase or extend its bond purchase programme than reduce or terminate it early", states Commerzbank.