Summary Estonia's finance ministry halved its original 2013 GDP forecast down to 1.5 percent.
TALLINN (AFP) - Eurozone member Estonia has slipped into recession after posting a 0.2 percent contraction in the second quarter on the heels of 1.0-percent decline in the previous quarter, Statistics Estonia said Monday.
"This downturn is yet again an imported one. Our main export partners are feeling the chill and so are we. Finland is in recession, Sweden struggles and Russia is stagnating. It is as simple as that," added Peeter Koppel, investment strategist at SEB Bank in Estonia.
The small Baltic nation of 1.3 million people, which in 2011 became the first ex-Soviet state to adopt the euro, is largely dependent on exports.
On an annual comparison, its economy grew by 1.0 percent in the second quarter, down slightly from the 1.1 percent rate recorded in the first quarter of 2013, Statistics Estonia said.
Last year it clocked a 3.2 percent expansion in its gross domestic product (GDP), on the heels of record 8.3 percent growth in 2011.
Estonia s finance ministry recently halved its original 2013 GDP forecast down to 1.5 percent due to a worse than expected slump in domestic demand and investment. But the ministry remained optimistic about 2014, with its forecast unchanged at 3.6 percent.
