Eurozone Economy To Shrink in 09′

The European Commission said in its latest economic forecast that the eurozone economy will shrink by 1.9% this year due to the ongoing international financial crisis, Xinhua News reports.



This marks a downward revision from November’s forecast, which predicted a growth of 0.1% for the eurozone in 2009. The eurozone economy had plunged into a technical recession in the third quarter of 2008 after registering negative growth of 0.2% in two consecutive quarters.



Economic activity worldwide was expected to have fallen markedly in the last quarter of 2008. Declines in recent survey data and incoming orders, among others, indicate that this weakness is likely to persist in the short term. For 2009 as a whole, world gross domestic product (GDP) growth was projected to slow down to 0.5%. In the 27-nation European Union (EU), GDP growth was expected to fall by 1.8% in 2009 before recovering moderately to 0.5% in 2010, according to the commission.