Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, raised its economic growth figure for the 28-nation bloc and said expansion in the second quarter was driven by Eastern European countries.

Expansion in the April through June period was 2.4% compared with the second quarter of 2016, Luxembourg-based Eurostat said in a statement on Thursday. Its preliminary estimate, given in August, was 2.3%.

Growth was led by Romania with 5.7%, Estonia and Slovenia, both with 5.2%. No figure was given for Luxembourg.

The office also revised upwards its figures for growth across the 19 countries using the euro currency, to 2.3% from 2.2%.

EU gross domestic product growth was 0.7% in the second quarter compared with the previous three months, a change from the 0.6% initial estimate. For the eurzone the number was 0.6%, unchanged from August.

(Alistair Holloway, alistair.holloway@wort.lu, +352 49 93 39)