Spanish economy minister expects Q3 GDP to shrink 0.4 pct

The Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on Monday he expected the country's GDP to shrink by 0.4 percent in the third quarter, the same as in the second quarter. While the third-quarter economic performance in Europe is generally worse than that in the second quarter, the situation in Spain shows a stabilizing trend, although the overall data is still negative, he noted. "The development of the economy in the third quarter is very similar to that in the second quarter," the minister said. He made the remarks on the same day that a group of experts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrived in Madrid to supervise the reform of the Spanish banking system which needs 59.3 billion euros (76.8 billion U.S. dollars) for its recapitalization.