Fresh signs of eurozone economic activity picking up emerged on Thursday as Raghuram Rajan, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, warned that Europe needed to speed up economic reforms.

Industrial production in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, rose by a much better-than-expected 1.1 per cent in October, extending September’s 1.5 per cent rise. The improvement reinforces expectations that the European Central Bank will follow last week’s quarter percentage point increase in interest rates with further rises next year.