Spain's economy grows by 0.2 percent in second quarter

Spain's economy slowed down in the second quarter this year, in the wake of growing market worries over a sovereign debt crisis, the official National Institute of Statistics (INE) said here Friday. In the April-June period, the economy grew 0.2 percent over the previous quarter, when the country registered a 0.4-percent growth. The INE attributed the slowdown mainly to contracting domestic consumption in the country, due partly to Spain's towering unemployment. Spain currently has over 4 million people out of work and boasts an unemployment rate of over 20 percent. Domestic consumption shrank by 0.2 percent between April and June, while it had increased by 0.7 percent in the first three months of 2011. But the fall was offset partly by an improved performance in the export market, which benefited from an 8.4-percent rise in exports, coupled with a 1.7-percent drop in imports due to lack of demand in Spain. Year on year, Spain's economy grew 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2011 compared to the same period a year earlier, after posting annual growth of 0.9 percent in the first quarter.