EU Economy Contracted 1.5% in Q4
The Economy in the European Union contracted in the last quarter of 2008 by 1.5% compared with the similar period in the previous year, according to data from the European Statistics Institute – Eurostat.
The report of the previous quarter, gross domestic product in the EU-15 decreased by 1, 6%. Throughout the building community, the economy declined in the last three months of 2008 by 1.4% compared to the IV quarter in 2007 and 1.5% reported in the July-September.
Bulgaria (+3.5) Poland (+3.1%), Romania (+2.9%), Cyprus (+2.9%), Greece (+2.7%), Slovakia (+2.5%), Czech Republic (+0, 7) and Austria (+0.6) are the only countries in the European Union which reported annual growth of GDP in the last quarter of 2008. The largest decreases were recorded in Latvia (-10.3%), Estonia (-9, 7%) and Ireland (-7.4%).