Euro zone recovery stutters in September as coronavirus infections rise

Euro zone business activity has taken a hit in the month of September as countries face a second wave of coronavirus infections, initial data showed Wednesday.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said that as of Sep. 22, there had been 2.9 million confirmed infections in the region, with Spain and France now seeing daily cases rise above the 10,000 mark. Governments have announced new restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus and economists have started considering the economic ramifications of the new measures.

“The sharp rise in Covid-19 cases recorded across France during September helped to explain the first fall in business activity since May,” Eliot Kerr, an economist at IHS Markit, said in a statement on Wednesday.

A sharp fall in activity in the French services industry was not fully offset by manufacturing output. This led the overall index for France to drop for the first time in four months, IHS Markit reported.

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