France's first-quarter growth at 0.3%

France recorded a slower than expected economic pace of 0.3 per cent GDP growth in first three months of the year due to sluggish household spending and falling exports, a report said on Friday.

Rising by 0.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2016, economic activity slowed in 2017 as consumer spending stalled over the period at 0.1 per cent from 0.6 per cent a quarter earlier, Xinhua news agency cited a national statistics institute Insee report as saying.

Sales abroad reported a negative trend in the first quarter after falling by 0.7 per cent compared to a 1.4 per cent rise a quarter earlier, while imports rose by 0.7 percentage points to 1.5 per cent.

For 2017, the French government expects economic growth to expand by 1.5 per cent from 1.1 per cent in 2016.

--IANS

py/vt