The eurozone economy contracted by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with the previous three months, the European Union (EU)'s statistics bureau Eurostat said on Thursday, confirming a previous estimate.

It was the deepest quarter-on-quarter contraction for the combined economy of the 16 EU nations that use the euro since the eurozone came into being in 1999.

And it also marked the third successive quarter of negative growth. In the second and third quarter of 2008, the eurozone economy shrank by 0.2 percent respectively.

The substantially larger decline showed the euro zone was deeper in recession as the financial crisis took its toll on the real economy.

In the fourth quarter of last year, exports decreased by 7.3 percent in the eurozone, investments fell by 2.7 percent and household final consumption expenditure declined by 0.9 percent.

Year on year, the eurozone economy contracted by 1.3 percent in the last four months of 2008.

In the 27-nation EU, the economy shrank by 1.5 percent quarter on quarter and by 1.3 percent year on year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2009)