Denmark has fallen into recession, the first EU country to do so in the aftermath of the US subprime crisis, after its economy contracted in the first quarter, official figures showed on Tuesday.
The official statistics office said the Danish economy contracted 0.6 percent compared with the three months to December, when it saw negative growth of 0.2 percent.
A recession is defined technically as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
“The numbers are very disappointing and even more so because they stem from many different factors. It adds up to quite a poor picture,” HSH Nordbank senior analyst Erik Bennike said.
“Denmark is in what is called a technical recession. The Danish economy has been hit harder than we have estimated,” Danske Bank chief economist Steen Bocian said.
Compared with a year earlier, the economy contracted 0.7 percent in the first quarter, the statistics office said.
Analysts had expected year-on-year growth of 1.3 percent in the first quarter and quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.2 percent.
The statistics office said household consumption fell 1.1 percent in the first quarter, led by a 4.4 percent drop in new car sales.
The government said in May that it expected growth of 1.2 percent this year and 0.7 percent next year after the economy expanded 1.8 percent last year.
Denmark is one of the 30 countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which groups the world’s richest economies.
Global growth has been steadily slowing since the collapse of the US subprime or higher-risk home loan market last year sparked a credit crunch that has seen business starved of funding as banks refuse to lend.
At the same time, record high oil and other commodity prices have stoked costs and inflation, undercutting corporate profits and investment.
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