It's confirmed. Denmark has become the first developed country and the first in Europe to officially classified as undergoing recession, after two successive quarters of negative GDP growth. Denmark's economy has shranked by 0.2 percent in the 4th quarter of 2007 and by 0.6 percent in the 1st quarter of 2008. With inflation being at 18-year high, the situation does not seem to be improving.
Some economists projected that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy as being countries where recession is most likely next.
In Britain, house prices have declined for eight consecutive months, with the expectation that this slump will spread throughout the economy. It appears that house prices had declined more than at any time since 1992!
Despite all the problems in US, its GDP growth is still hanging on by a thread as it reported 1.9% growth in the second quarter, following the 0.9% growth in the 1st quarter.
What about Asia and the Pacific rim? While it does not look likely for Asian countries to head into recession any time soon as economic growth is still strong albeit signs of slowing, with both China and India in the fore front, the same cannot be said about New Zealand. New Zealand's economy shrank 0.3% in the 1st quarter of 2008 and is likely to shrink again in the 2nd quarter. The drought that happened earlier in the year appeared to have cause major damages to the economy, to the extent of possibly knocking 1% off the GDP.
Well, my dear sister live in Hamilton, New Zealand, and she works in a bank. Perhaps she could give me a better reflection of the real situation there....
