The speed of contraction in Slovakia's gross domestic product (GDP) has slowed. While in the first quarter of this year, the economy shrank by 5.6 percent, GDP showed a real drop of 5.3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009, the Slovak Statistics Office has announced, confirming its flash estimate from August.
GDP amounting to €15.640 billion was generated in Slovakia in the second quarter. At current prices, this was 6.5 percent lower than a year ago, the SITA newswire wrote.
Lower foreign and domestic demand was behind the drop in GDP. Exports of products and services shrank by 20.5 percent, with a drop in imports of products and services of 21.9 percent. Local demand was lower by 5.9 percent. Within domestic demand, formation of gross capital declined 25.4 percent and consumption of non-profit organisations serving households went down by 0.7 percent, amounting to 1 percent of GDP. By contrast, final consumption by the government grew 5.9 percent and final household consumption grew by 0.7 percent.
Although negative impacts from the global economic crisis hit the Slovak economy as early as the second quarter of 2008, real growth in GDP for the whole of 2008 was 6.4 percent. The situation, however, reversed in the first two quarters of this year. In Q1, the economy reported its first contraction since Q1 2000.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
