Spain's economic decline slows

Business News

Aug 27, 2009, 8:33 GMT

Madrid - Spain's economy continued contracting in the second quarter, though the rate of the decline slowed down, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said Thursday. Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 1.1 per cent, down from 1.6 per cent in the first quarter, according to confirmed figures issued by the institute. The second-quarter drop was, however, deeper than expected, after the INE initially gave a preliminary figure of 1 per cent. The economy contracted 4.2 per cent year-on-year in its steepest fall since 1970, which the institute attributed largely to declining domestic demand. Unemployment has increased by 7 per cent over a year, the INE added. European statistics put Spain's jobless rate at around 18 per cent, the highest in the eurozone. On Wednesday, the INE revised the economic growth figure for 2008 downward to 0.9 per cent, from 1.2 per cent previously. The global economic crisis has hit Spain harder than many other European countries, after the meltdown of the key construction sector. The Spanish economy is also expected to be among the slowest to recover.

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