Europe's GDP unchanged -- still low

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BRUSSELS, March 6 (UPI) -- The European Commission's statistical agency Eurostat left its fourth quarter estimates for economic activity in Europe unchanged Wednesday.

Validating figures released a month earlier, Eurostat said the gross domestic product for the 17-member eurozone fell 0.6 percent from the third quarter while the GDP for the 27-member European Union fell 0.5 percent.

Compared to the same quarter of 2011, the GDP for the eurozone fell 0.9 percent. For the EU, the GDP was down 0.6 percent from the fourth quarter a year earlier.

Portugal registered the steepest rate of quarter-to-quarter decline with the GDP down 1.8 percent. Latvia posted the strongest quarter-to-quarter growth with the GDP up 1.3 percent.

Data for Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta were not available. Of the remaining countries, 15 countries experienced economic contraction in the fourth quarter while six experienced growth, Eurostat said. In Bulgaria and Sweden, the GDP was flat quarter to quarter.