Eurozone economy grew by 1.7 percent in 2010 despite the adverse effect of the sovereign debt crisis, EU's statistics office Eurostat said on Tuesday.
The positive growth was achieved after a record contraction of 4.1 percent in 2009 when the financial crisis was taking its toll on the real economy.
According to the flash estimates of Eurostat, eurozone economy grew by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, while the EU's economy increased by 0.2 percent compared with the previous quarter.
In the third quarter of 2010, eurozone's economy also rose 0.3 percent while that of the EU gained 0.5 percent.
After starting recovery in the third quarter of 2009, eurozone economy maintained its growth momentum throughout 2010, and reached a record high growth rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter.