French growth to top forecasts this year: minister

PARIS (Reuters) – French gross domestic product growth will probably exceed the government’s forecast of 1.7 percent for this year, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday, and he set up a new innovation fund to boost future growth.

“Growth is solid, it probably reached 2 percent in 2017 for the first time since 2011. In 2018, we will probably do better than our forecast of 1.7 percent,” Le Maire said in a New Year’s speech to economic experts.

Le Maire said he had signed documents on Monday officially setting up a new 10 billion euro ($12.3 billion) fund aimed at boosting future growth by financing innovation.

He said it would initially be composed of 1.6 billion euros in proceeds from the sale last year of Engie and Renault (PA:) shares and would include 8.4 billion euros in EDF (PA:) and Thales shares, which remain government property.

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