Chasing 215 for victory against Punjab, Hyderabad reached the target with five balls to spare at their home
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The 2011 public deficit fell to 5.2 percent of gross domestic product, national statistics agency INSEE said, beating both an official target of 5.7 percent and the 5.3 percent level that Finance Minister Francois Baroin recently said was within reach.
Consumer spending, the traditional motor of growth in France, jumped by a surprise 3.0 percent in February, springing back from a decline of 0.4 percent the previous month in a further encouraging sign for the economy. Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted a modest rise of 0.2 percent.
The figures are welcome news for Sarkozy, who is lagging Socialist rival Francois Hollande in opinion polls for a two-round election on April 22 and May 6 and is vying to show that he is best placed to nurse the economy back to health.
Data earlier this week showed that GDP grew 0.2 percent in the final quarter of 2011, averting fears that France might be headed into another recession, although there is still concern about feeble purchasing power.
“The Socialists said France was in recession, as if they actually enjoyed it every time there was bad news for France,” Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio, announcing the 2011 deficit figure.
“Well now we’ve got the results - France is the only Western country that hasn’t had a single quarter of recession,” he said.
Separately, producer price data showed a 0.8 percent rise in the cost of goods going into factories, in a sign of the ongoing pressures businesses are facing, with energy and commodity prices on the rise.
INSEE data also showed that France’s public debt stood at 1.72 trillion euros, or 85.5 percent of GDP, at the end of 2011, missing the government’s official target of 84.9 percent for the year.
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