French exports surged unexpectedly in the third quarter of 2005
German data next week should show to what extent the country managed to maintain its strong run on the export front, but what was striking on Friday was data from France showing a quarterly jump of 3.1 percent in exports for the July-September period. Economists are accustomed to the idea of the German economy living off exports because of stagnant or shrinking consumer spending, and equally used to a French economy which, on the contrary lives off solid consumer spending and less robust exports. That spawned a degree of caution on Friday because of the long-held view that France's export machine is weaker than that of Germany, where companies are believed to have positioned themselves better in high-growth export markets. "I don't think we're going to see numbers of that magnitude being sustained, because it's really a big increase," David Naude of Deutsche Bank in Paris said of the French figures. "But it's quite typical of the early stages of a pick up in demand -- exports can react quite strongly and that's what we've seen."
Naude's Deutsche Bank colleague in Frankfurt Stefan Bielmeier put Germany's export performance down to healthy overseas demand and the fillip a weaker euro gives to exports from the euro zone in terms of price competitiveness.
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