The euro dropped to a six-week low against the dollar as sovereign debt concerns in Europe coincided with signs the region’s biggest economies are slowing. The 16-nation currency was set for its biggest weekly loss since August as data showed France’s economy slowed in the third quarter. The dollar headed for a second weekly gain versus the yen ahead of data that economists said will show U.S. consumer sentiment improved this month. Group of 20 leaders today endorsed gradual changes in currency values and agreed to develop early-warning indicators to monitor policies that exacerbate trade imbalances. “People are starting to price in slowdown signs in the euro zone,” said Naoto Minatogawa, a currency analyst at Himawari Securities Inc. in Tokyo. “Market attention is switching back to negative factors for the euro.” The euro fell to $1.3606 as of 6:36 a.m. in London from $1.3667 in New York yesterday, after sliding to $1.3592, the weakest since Sept. 30. Europe’s currency has lost 3.1 percent this week against the greenback, the biggest drop since the period ended Aug. 13. It declined to 112.02 yen from 112.73 yen. The dollar traded at 82.33 yen from 82.49 yen, poised for a 1.3 percent gain this week. The U.S. currency reached 82.80 yen on Nov. 10, the strongest since Oct. 7. Gross domestic product in the 16-nation euro area increased 0.5 percent in the third quarter, after expanding 1 percent in the previous three months, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The European Union’s statistics office will release the data today. France’s GDP rose 0.4 percent in the three months through September, down from the 0.7 percent gain in the previous quarter, Paris-based statistics office Insee said today. GDP growth in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, slipped to 0.8 percent in the third quarter from 2.2 percent in the second, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Wider Spread Ireland’s bonds have plunged amid concern the country will need to seek European Union aid to bail out its banks. The extra yield investors demand to hold Irish 10-year notes over comparable German bunds surged to a record yesterday, a day after bond clearing house LCH Clearnet Ltd. demanded clients place larger deposits when trading the nation’s debt. European finance ministers attending the G-20 leaders meeting in Seoul said plans to establish a new crisis resolution mechanism, including the potential for bondholders to be held accountable, will not apply to outstanding debt. “Any new mechanism would only come into effect after mid-2013 with no impact whatsoever on the current arrangements,” the finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. said in a statement distributed to reporters. ‘Prove Resilient’ The Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, rose for a sixth day to trade at 78.372 from 78.217 yesterday, the longest winning streak since June. The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of U.S. consumer sentiment rose to 69 this month from 67.7 in October, according to a separate Bloomberg survey before today’s report. “As the U.S. and other economies prove resilient, we are unlikely to see things deteriorate a lot and require additional monetary easing measures,” said Hiroshi Watanabe, a senior economist in Tokyo at the Daiwa Institute of Research, a unit of Japan’s second-biggest brokerage. “The bias is to reduce dollar-short positions.” A short position is a bet an asset will decline. The yen pared its weekly loss against the dollar on speculation Japan’s exporters bought the currency to bring home funds from overseas. G-20 Meeting “Purchases by Japanese exporters weigh on the dollar-yen with the dollar at 82 yen or higher,” said Daisuke Karakama, a market economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd., Japan’s second- largest publicly traded lender in Tokyo. “Considering the dollar has been below 82 for almost a month, it’s understandable they would like to sell” the U.S. currency. Finance ministers from the G-20 will work next year on a system to assess the path of global current-account imbalances, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Seoul. The G-20 are set to release a joint statement later today. To contact the reporter on this story: Yoshiaki Nohara in Tokyo at ynohara1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rocky Swift at rswift5@bloomberg.net.

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