* ECB's Sramko sees euro zone growing 0.1 pct in Q3
* Bank of Italy sees growth at around half a percent
* Reuters euro zone growth poll due later on Thursday
(Adds growth comments, Italy bank report)
BRATISLAVA, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The euro zone economy has
climbed out of recession in the third quarter, the Italian and
Slovak central banks said on Thursday, but there is a difference
of opinion about the strength of the recovery.
The Bank of Italy said in a quarterly bulleting that it
expected third-quarter growth in the euro zone to "turn
positive, in the order of half a percentage point".
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But ECB governing council member Ivan Sramko said at a
conference in Bratislava that data pointed to a milder upswing.
"Industrial production and the consumer confidence index
suggest a stabilisation of the economic development and confirm
possible ... growth in the third quarter of 0.1 percent,"
Sramko, governor of the Slovak central bank, told a conference.
The ECB itself does not give detailed quarterly forecasts.
Its latest full-year projection from September forecasts gross
domestic product (GDP) to drop by 3.8 to 4.4 percent this year
and a range for 2010 of -0.5 to +0.9 percent.
Euro zone industrial output accelerated month-on-month in
August and July production was revised upwards, data showed on
Wednesday, providing evidence the area's economy is likely to
have started growing in the third quarter.
Industrial output in the 16-country zone rose 0.9 percent on
the month in August, leaving production 15.4 percent below the
year-earlier level.
The area's economy dipped by 0.2 percent in the second
quarter alone, putting the year-on-year decline at 4.8 percent.
Reuters will release a poll on third-quarter growth
estimates at around 1215 GMT on Thursday.
Sramko said confidence was growing that the euro zone would
not experience deflation, despite prices already being in
negative territory.
"The conviction that there will be no deflation is growing,"
Sramko said.
Deflation is a prolonged and widespread decline in prices
that causes consumers and businesses to curb spending as they
wait for costs to fall further. It occurs when annual headline
inflation stays in negative territory.
Euro zone consumer prices fell 0.3 percent year-on-year in
September after dipping 0.2 percent in August, 0.7 percent in
July and 0.1 percent in June. Economists polled by Reuters
expect it to pick up in the final months of the year <EUCPI>.
The ECB left its key interest rate flat at 1.0 percent last
week, as expected, and President Jean Claude Trichet said the
time has not come up yet for the bank to start an exit from
non-traditional measures it has employed to boost liquidity.
(Reporting by Martin Santa and Stephen Brown, writing by Jan
Lopatka; editing by Patrick Graham)
