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to show a % slippage,with August the figures were flattered slightly by a down grade to the June figure,to % %. With manufacturing in the doldrums across Europe and the US,consumer spending has been increasingly seen as the best hope of stopping the global economic slowdown from turning into a French government said the news proved that the economy was holding up to the strain of the slowdown. Meanwhile in Germany,new regional price figures went someway towards calming fears about inflation in Europe’s largest economy—a key reason for the European Central Bank’s reluctance to cut interest 15 states said consumer prices were broadly stable,with inflation falling year on information backed economists’ expectations that inflation for the country as a whole is set to fall back to a yearly rate of %,pared to a yearly rate of % in August,closing in on the Euro?wide target of 2%.The drop is partly due to last year’s spike in oil prices dropping out of the year?on?year calculation. The icing on the cake was news that Italy’s job market has remained country’s July unemployment rate dropped to % from % the month before,its lowest level in more than eight a business confidence survey from quasi?governmental research group ISAE told of a general pick?up in demand in the six weeks to early the news was tempered by an announcement by Alitalia,the country’s biggest airline,that it will have to get rid of 2,500 staff to c