{"id":550602,"date":"2026-04-25T21:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/550602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T21:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:16:16","slug":"world-economy-latest-european-business-activity-shrinks-on-services-pullback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/550602\/","title":{"rendered":"World Economy Latest: European Business Activity Shrinks on Services Pullback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ArticleBodyText_articleBodyContent__17wqE typography_articleBody___5jDr\" data-component=\"paragraph\">Business activity in the euro area contracted for the first time since 2024 on a pronounced weakening in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/terminal\/TDXSTNNQ9PMV\" class=\"media-ui-Link_link-tVkXhPLPofs- whitespace-normal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-component=\"link\">services sectorBloomberg Terminal<\/a> as war in the Middle East suppressed demand.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleBodyText_articleBodyContent__17wqE typography_articleBody___5jDr\" data-component=\"paragraph\">In the US, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-04-21\/us-retail-sales-surged-in-march-in-broad-advance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"media-ui-Link_link-tVkXhPLPofs-\" data-component=\"link\">retail sales<\/a> powered ahead last month in a broad advance that underscored a resilient consumer. Meanwhile, South Korea\u2019s economy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-04-22\/south-korea-s-economy-rebounds-in-first-quarter-on-solid-exports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"media-ui-Link_link-tVkXhPLPofs-\" data-component=\"link\">expanded<\/a> by the most since 2020 as rampant investment in artificial intelligence continues to fuel a technology-led export boom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business activity in the euro area contracted for the first time since 2024 on a pronounced weakening in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[733,84,2345,4229,1294,74437,591,1431,585,632,189420,11998,56,54,55,636],"class_list":{"0":"post-550602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-consumer-confidence","11":"tag-economics","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-euro-spot","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-inflation","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-middle-east","18":"tag-price-index","19":"tag-south-korea","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom","23":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}