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Strong growth in Europe 2:46

CNN's Charles Hodson speaks with Bank of America's Holger Schmieding about Europe's first-quarter growth

Well the Germany economy had no winter in January and February and as a result, construction was much stronger than usual this time of the year. On top of that, the consumers which had paused over Christmas return to the shops early in 2008, and that propelled German growth up.

What things are amazing that the rest are getting glum, certainly United States, certainly in Britain and one or two Euro-zone economies, but the Germany is doing so well, is it just a blip?

I think it is mostly a blip. We will probably see in the second and the third quarter that the growth trend is actually much weaker. On top of that, we yet have to see the full impact of the extremely strong Euro as well as of the extremely high oil price. So the start into 2008 was very good for Germany, less good for others, but even Germany is not gonna hold up going forward.

Well, certainly. What's sort of a role is the strong Euro gonna play again, looking more broadly, certainly in terms of exporting into the dollar zones, it's getting more and more difficult for this year Euro, Euro-zone company, isn't it ?

Yes. Euro-zone exports to the United States are already falling largely because US demand is so weak but also because the currency is starting to hurt and remind you it takes typically about nine months for the full impact of the exchange rate moves to come through. So we learned today that the Eurozone could cope with the exchange rates we had last summer. How the Eurozone will fare with the exchange rates of the last few months? We only have learned over this summer and the news is likely to be this exchange rate of the recent month has been too high.

OK, well, clearly that does give us grounds for pessimism in terms of the start of fall, the end of 2008, start of 2009. It may be that we might see kind of recession or certainly a sharp slowdown towards the end of the, um, essentially mirroring what's been happening in the United States right now this first quarter?

We'll probably see a sharp slowdown in the second quarter already extending onto close to the end of the year. Well, whereas at the same time, the US economy may hit bottom, so the economic fortunes of the two regions which currently are diverging a lot will probably converge with significant extend by the end of this year, yes.

Let's look at what is if you like the sick man of Europe, or at least the sick man of the Eurozone, and that, that is Spain, I mean, that is clearly suffering some punishment. Is it all housing related?

It is in Spain mostly housing related. Year over year, actually Spain is not doing that badly, they are still growing at an annual term at 2.7% rate. It is just that by their own standards that they have slowed down a lot and they will likely slow down to growth rates of no more than 1%, which is the current US pace within the next one or two quarters, for Spain that feels like real pain.

文本参考中文翻译

CNN记者Charles Hodson跟美国银行的Holger Schmieding探讨欧洲第一季度经济增长问题。

德国的经济在一月份和二月份没有遭遇寒冬，所以，建设状况比往年同期要好很多。除此之外，在圣诞期间暂停消费的人们在2008年伊始重回商场，这进一步推动了德国经济增长。

令人惊讶的是，世界上其他地方，比如美国，英国还有一两个欧元区经济体的经济都非常低迷，而德国的经济发展势头却很好，这是不是昙花一现呢？

我认为极有可能是昙花一现。在接下来的第二第三季度可能这种增长趋势会非常微弱。此外，我们还会受到非常强势的欧元和高油价的影响。所以，2008年的开始对德国来说可能很好，其他国家的形势却不妙，但是，德国也不可能一直保持这种增长速度。

当然。那么强势的欧元将会起到什么作用呢？从更广阔的范围来讲，从向美元区的出口方面来看，对欧元区的公司来说，今年的形式将更加困那，对吗？

是的，欧元区向美国的出口额已经大幅下滑，因为美国的需求量很小，同时还因为美元开始疲软，需要大约九个月的时间汇率变动的影响才能完全过去。所以，今天我们得知欧元区可能会面临我们去年夏天所面临的汇率问题。欧元区会怎样处理过去几个月的汇率问题呢？我们仅仅得知可能今年夏天会放出消息说，最近几个月的汇率过高。

很明显，这给了我们一些证据来预测2008年末，2009年初经济可能会开始下滑。同时，美国经济可能探底，这两个货币区域逐渐扩大的悲观的经济形势年底可能会波及更广泛的区域。

让我们看一下欧洲或者欧元区哪些国家已经遭受波及，比如，西班牙，现在明显已经承受着经济下滑的巨大压力。所有的都是和房地产相关的吗？

在西班牙，大部分遭到撞击的都是和房地产相关的。其实年复一年，西班牙的经济增长率一直不错，他们今年的经济增长率仍然有2.7%。只是按照他们自己的标准来说，经济增长迟缓了很多，他们接下来的经济增长率可能低于1%。而接下来的一两个季度，美国的经济增长率也只是这个水平。