France has lowered its economic forecast for 2013, with the finance minister saying on Saturday that he expected gross domestic product to grow between "-0.1 per cent and 0.1 per cent," according to dpa. The minister, Pierre Moscovici, was quoted in regional newspaper Corse Matin, while on holiday in Corsica. Data had already suggested that President Francois Hollande's forecast of 0.1 per cent GDP growth in 2013 may have been optimistic. In June, national statistics agency INSEE confirmed that the economy is in recession, with output down 0.2 per cent in the first quarter of the year after an equivalent drop in the last quarter of 2012. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. INSEE expects the eurozone's second-largest economy to shrink by 0.1 per cent in 2013, after zero growth in 2012. Moscovici said it is important that the trend be reversed, and he expressed optimism that the economy would soon be out of recession given that all the indicators are improving. He said there were enough reasons to believe that after three years, the economy would return to growth in 2014.
