Economy may have shrunk as much as 12%
09.02.2010, 11:19Estonia’s economy probably shrank between 11 and 12% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, an improvement from 15.6% year on year fall in GDP in the third quarter, Estonian finance ministry said today.
The economy probably troughed in the quarter, helped by the stabilization in industrial production and exports, Andrus Saalik, head of the ministry's economic analysis department said today to Bloomberg.
The ministry’s estimate compares with a median forecast of 12.1% in a Bloomberg survey of four analysts. The statistics office is due to report its preliminary estimate for fourth-quarter GDP on Feb. 11.
Gross domestic product shrank an annual 15.6% in the third quarter, the second-deepest recession in the European Union after Latvia, as the three Baltic countries reduce spending and prices to keep their currency pegs, a condition of euro adoption.