Current Affairs Global - 3 June 2014 1. Eurozone inflation dropped to 0.5% in May compared to 0.7% in previous month of April. This inflation number is well below the European Central Banks 2% target and ECB is expected to cut rates in order to boost growth and counter the threat of deflation fear now. Also the eurozone unemployment rate dropped slightly to 11.7% in April compared to 11.8% in March. Austria has the lowest unemployment rate of 4.9% while Germany has 5.2%, Greece has the highest unemployment rate in the zone at 26.5% while Spain has 25.1%. 2. Growth in US manufacturing slowed in May compared to April, as per the data published by the Institute for Supply Management yesterday. The ISM manufacturing sector purchasing managers index, an important parameter to judge performance of the sector, dropped to 53.2 in May compared to 54.9 in April. Any reading higher than 50 indicates growth in the sector, which also confirms growth for the sector but at a slower pace compared to previous month.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 16:52:24 +0000