Yves Mersch: Monetary policy in the euro area - solid expansion with timid price pressure Contribution by Mr Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, to the EUROFI magazine, submitted on 21 March 2018 and published on 26 April 2018. * * * The euro area economy currently is solidly expanding and the upswing is broad-based.
Although the contribution of the manufacturing sector to GDP has declined from 21 per cent in 1994 to 18,5 per cent in 2000, the real value added by this sector grew by an annual average of 2 per cent for the same period. The sector was buoyed by strong consumption spending from 1994 to 1997.