US economy expands 3% in Q3

Washington, Oct 28 (IANS) The US economy grew at an annual rate of three per cent in the third quarter of the year, slightly lower than the 3.1 per cent in the previous quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The deceleration primarily reflected drops in personal consumption expenditures, non-residential fixed investment and exports, Xinhua quoted the department as saying.

Personal consumption expenditures, which account for about two-thirds of the US economy, increased at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent in the third quarter, lower than the second quarter's 3.3 per cent.

Non-residential fixed investment, a measure of corporate spending on structures and equipment, grew 3.9 per cent, down from 6.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

Exports rose 2.3 per cent from July to September, while imports fell 0.8 per cent, which led to a smaller trade deficit, adding 0.41 percentage point to growth in the third quarter.

Economists had expected that US economic growth would slow down to 2.5 per cent in the third quarter due to disruptions caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma along the Gulf Coast.

The Commerce Department said preliminary estimates showed that the two hurricanes resulted in disaster losses of $121 billion in privately-owned fixed assets and $10.4 billion in government-owned fixed assets.

However, it was not possible to estimate the overall impact of the two hurricanes on the third-quarter gross domestic product.

Friday's report marked the first time the US economy had expanded above three per cent in back-to-back quarters since 2014.

While the Trump administration has vowed to accelerate annual US economic growth to over three per cent, the overall economy grew 2.1 per cent in the first half of 2017.

The Federal Reserve last month estimated that the economy would grow at 2.4 per cent in 2017 and 2.1 per cent in 2018.

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