Businesses in eurozone grow at fastest pace in nearly 4 years

London

EUROZONE businesses ramped up activity this month, just as the European Central Bank starts printing money to spur growth and inflation, while a slowdown among Chinese factories has fuelled calls for more stimulus there.

Tuesday's surveys showed signs of an economic pickup in the troubled euro zone, just as ECB policymakers unleash a roughly 1 trillion euro quantitative easing plan. "I wouldn't want to give QE too much credence at this stage. The ECB has only been buying for a couple of weeks and QE takes a long time to have any impact - if at all," said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank. "The outright QE itself has had zero impact, growth was already happening."