(AFP) MADRID – Spain’s gross domestic product shrank by 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012, equalling the slump in the final quarter of 2011, according to preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute.
The return to recession, blamed on weak domestic demand only partially compensated by exports, comes barely two years after Spain emerged from the last downturn at the start of 2010.
It was no surprise just days after an even more pessimistic diagnosis by Bank of Spain, which estimated the economy shrank 0.4 percent in the first quarter.
