Dutch economy may shrink 3.5pc
The Dutch economy is set to shrink by 3.5 percent in 2009, the government's budget policy advice body said Tuesday as the prime minister spoke of a "heavy recession" in the country.
"The Netherlands finds itself in a heavy recession," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told reporters as the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, CPB, undercut the government's 1.25-percent economic growth projection for 2009.
The bureau also forecast a 3.0-percent budget deficit for 2009 and 5.5 percent for 2010 -- a sharp switch from the government's September projections of a surplus of 1.2 percent of total economic output for 2009 and 0.8 percent for 2010.
"The "effects of the financial crisis are much worse than expected," CPB head Coen Teulings told reporters.
"The core of the problem is world trade."
Last week, Dutch statistics agency CBS said the economy had entered recession in the fourth quarter of 2008, posting its biggest decline since the beginning of the 1980s.
The economy shrunk 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter and 0.3 percent in the third, it said, blaming a strong drop in exports of Dutch products.
Receiving the latest statistics, Balkenende bemoaned this "new and serious trial."
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