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"With Greece still on the edge of disaster and the fiscal crisis deepening, the eurozone economy faces enormous challenges," said Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics, who is predicting that the eurozone will contract by 1 percent this year and by an even-worse 2.5 percent next. The quarterly figures from Eurostat were a little better than most analyst predictions of a 0.4 percent drop, but failed to affect markets, which were focused on the possibility that Greece might finally clinch a new bailout deal. National figures released before the Eurostat data indicated that buoyant investment levels helped France post an unexpected 0.2 percent gain and Germany a lower-than-anticipated 0.2 percent drop. For 2011 as a whole, the eurozone economy grew by 1.5 percent, while the 27-nation European Union, which includes non-euro countries such as Britain and Sweden, expanded by 1.6 percent.
[Associated
Press;
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