Lithuania's economy shrank by 15 pct in 2009

(VILNIUS) - Lithuania's crisis-hit economy shrank by 15 percent in 2009, the European Union member's statistics office announced on Thursday.

The contraction was less severe than earlier estimates of a possible 18.2 percent plunge in the Baltic state's gross domestic product in 2009.

"Gross domestic product ... in 2009 made 92.45 billion litas (26.77 billion euros, 37.53 billion dollars) at current prices and, against 2008, dropped by 15 percent," Statistics Lithuania said in a statement.

GDP increased by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the third and was the second quarter of growth in a row, the statement said.

Lithuania jumped out of its deep recession in the third quarter, when its economy grew by 6.1 percent compared to the second quarter.

"GDP grew by an annual average 7.4 percent until 2009. In other words, we lost two years of average GDP growth," with the 15 percent contraction in output in 2009, Vilija Lapeniene, deputy head of Statistics Office, told at a press conference.

Lithuania's GDP grew by 3.2 percent in 2008 after record growth of 8.9 percent in 2007.

An ex-Soviet Baltic state of 3.3 million which joined the EU in 2004, Lithuania's economic slide began as the global economic crisis deepened in the second quarter of 2008, ending the country's years as an EU economic "tiger".