Brussels, 12/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Economic Research Institute of Munich, in collaboration with INSEE in Paris and ISAE in Rome published their most recent economic forecasts on Wednesday for the euro zone. As the Eurostat figures demonstrate (see previous article) the rise in GDP slowed in the third quarter of 2004 (+0.3%) compared to the previous quarter (+0.5%). The three institutes are predicting as moderate growth (0.4%) for the end of 2004 and for the first two quarters of 2005 but private investment will, however, take up the drop in global demand. In 2004, the rate is expected to be 1.8%. On the other hand, private consumption will not really take off and is expected to be around 0.3% over consecutive quarters. In the last quarter of 2004, industrial production (0.4%) is expected to include results from Franca and Italy but given the weakness of experts and jitters in domestic demand, a further slowdown is expected in the first quarter of 2005 (0.3%). Backed by production of intermediate and manufactured goods, is could, nonetheless, speed up later (0.5%). Inflation in December 2004 (2.3% is expected to go down gradually to 1.9% in the second quarter of 2005, according to the institutes' forecasts. They are counting on a fall in oil prices to around USD 38 per barrel and on equality between the euro and dollar exchange rates at 1.35 on average.