By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stock markets moved higher on Wednesday, as investors welcomed second-quarter GDP data from the euro zone that showed the region has emerged from a six-quarter-long recession.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.4% to 308.92, setting it on track for a fifth straight day of gains.

Posting the biggest gain in the index, Rentokil Initial PLC surged 8.1% after the pest-control and hygiene firm reported a 5.2% rise in first-half adjusted operating profit.

Shares of RWE AG lost 4.1%, after the German utility firm reported a 38% drop in first-half net profit.

ThyssenKrupp AG lost 0.9%, after the German industrial conglomerate posted a loss in the third fiscal quarter.

European markets started to move higher after data showed the euro zone has emerged from an 18-month recession. The region's gross domestic product rose 0.3% in the second quarter, ahead of market expectations of a 0.1% to 0.2% expansion. The currency bloc's GDP contracted by 0.3% in the first three months of the year.

But even if the data paint a rosier picture of the area, it is too early to talk of a sustainable recovery, analysts said. Read: Euro-zone GDP: Time to pop the champagne?

Tom Rogers, senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Eurozone Forecast, said "that even in those countries with the sharpest rebounds the pace of recovery is unlikely to be sustained in the second half of the year."

"Last weeks' retail sales data underlined the weakness of household spending power even in the north; credit is still only flowing to firms in certain countries, and demand from emerging markets is slowing down," he said. "More needs to be done if the apparent recovery of the past few months is to be more than simply a bright spot in an otherwise difficult few years," he added.

Data showed the German economy grew 0.7% in the second quarter, while the French economy expanded 0.5%, both numbers were ahead of expectations.

"Germany's figure certainly suggests that the worse of the economic turmoil in the country is over and the region's powerhouse is back on its feet," said Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist at ETX Capital.

Germany's DAX 30 index rose 0.3% to 8,441.00, while France's CAC 40 index rose 0.6% to 4,118.05.

Bank of England minutes

The U.K. was also in the spotlight on Wednesday, after minutes from the August Bank of England meeting showed eight out of nine Monetary Policy Committee members were in favor of adopting forward guidance on policy.

The BOE announced last week that it would keep its key lending rate at a record low of 0.5% until unemployment falls to a threshold of 7%, subject to certain conditions related to inflation and financial stability.

In that vein, data from the Office for National Statistics released Wednesday showed the U.K's unemployment rate held steady at 7.8% in June, broadly in line with expectations.

The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index was slightly higher at 6,612.28.

Shares of GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) rose 0.5% in London after J.P. Morgan Cazenove lifted the drug maker to neutral from underweight.

Outside the major indexes, shares of Celesio AG dropped 2.1% after the German health-care firm cut its earnings outlook for the year, citing continued competition in Germany and negative currency effects.

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