LISBON: Portugal’s gross domestic product expanded in the three months through March at a slower pace than in the fourth quarter as exports fell. GDP rose 0.1 percent from the fourth quarter, when it expanded 0.2 percent, the Lisbon-based National Statistics Institute said in a preliminary report on Friday.
Economists predicted a rise of 0.4 percent, the median of seven estimates in a Bloomberg survey showed. The euro-area economy grew 0.5 percent in the first quarter, according to Eurostat. The Portuguese economy expanded 0.8 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the slowest pace of annual growth since the fourth quarter of 2014.
Prime Minister Antonio Costa was sworn in at the end of November and his minority Socialist government is reversing state salary cuts faster than the previous administration proposed, while increasing indirect taxes. The government forecasts economic growth will accelerate to 1.8 percent this year.
