MADRID - Spain's National Statistics Office says the country's economy shrank a worse-than-expected 0.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared with the previous three-month period, reflecting the country's deepening recession.
The figure released Wednesday was higher than last week's preliminary estimate from the Bank of Spain of a 0.6 per cent contraction. Spain's economy has been shrinking for the last 18 months with unemployment at 26 per cent.
The statistics department said economic activity was down 1.8 per cent in the fourth quarter from the year-earlier period. For the whole of 2012, it shrank 1.4 per cent. The economy contracted by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter.
Europe's main statistics office Eurostat unveils its estimate for the remaining 16 European Union countries that use the euro and the wider 27-country EU on Feb. 14.
