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| Recession (Photo credit: Anders V) |
Spain's economy probably contracted 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2012, its central bank said on Monday, the first clear official confirmation of the scale of recession in one of the two large economies at the centre of the euro zone's debt crisis.
Government and economists' forecasts have been pointing for some time to a contraction at the start of this year in quarter-on-quarter terms, but the figure in the central bank's monthly report has tended to give an accurate reflection of official data. The official numbers are due on April 30.
The Bank of Spain's report said weak domestic demand had dragged the economy into its second formal recession - two consecutive quarters of negative quarterly growth - since 2008 while the outlook for the rest of the year was uncertain.
'The Spanish economy began 2012 in relapse, in which very weak domestic demand side was only offset by relative strength in the external sector,' the bank said... Continue to read.
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