BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Official EU data to be published today will show economic growth in the 13 nations sharing the euro slowed in the first quarter as a German sales tax hike hit consumers in Europe's biggest economy, economists said.

Private forecasters are looking on average for the data to show that quarterly growth slowed to 0.5 percent in the first three months of the year and 3.0 percent over one year.

That would mark a slowdown from the final three months of 2006, when the eurozone economy grew 0.9 percent and 3.3 percent over one year -- the fastest pace since the peak of the dot.com boom at the turn of the century.

"Momentum in the euro area seems to have faded a little in the first quarter, after a rapid expansion at the end of last year," Lehman Brothers economist Lavinia Santovetti said.

"Strength in the industrial sector seems to have been the main driver of growth, whereas stagnating retail sales -- dented by the German VAT hike -- coupled with weak new car registrations suggest that households have been reluctant to boost consumption," she added.

Despite the likely slowdown, economists said that it did not spell the beginning of the end of a recovery underway, with the European Commission forecasting eurozone growth ahead of both the United States and Japan at 2.6 percent this year.

"This slowdown is almost totally due to one-off factors -- German value added tax hike, in particular -- while surveys keep showing a sustained growth momentum," economists at Italian bank Unicredit wrote in a research note.

After several lean years at the beginning of the decade, a growing recovery in Germany has been the driving force behind the broader upswing in the eurozone as the country reclaims its title as the region's powerhouse.

However, Lehman Brothers is forecasting that German growth dropped to 0.2 percent in the first quarter from 0.9 percent as Germany raised its value added tax to 18 percent from 16 percent previously.

But the investment bank also forecasts that the Italian economy, the third biggest in the eurozone after France, skidded to a near halt of 0.2 percent growth in the first quarter, after 1.1 percent in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, it estimates growth in France remained unchanged in the first quarter at 0.7 percent.

Lehman Brothers' Santovetti said that the eurozone economic growth would likely remain robust in the coming quarters in the face of tepid consumer demand thanks to corporate investment. "Looking ahead, momentum in the euro area looks set to remain solid, thanks to robust investment growth," she said. "However, consumer spending will likely remain modest, unless wage growth surprises on the upside."