VIENNA, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Following a 1.4 percent contraction in the second quarter of 2023, Austria's gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 1.8 percent in real terms in the third quarter of this year, indicating the country's economy has slipped into recession, Statistics Austria said on Friday.
A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
"Following the economic boom until mid-2022, the economic slowdown has continued with slightly negative growth rates since the second quarter of 2023," Director General of Statistics Austria Tobias Thomas said in a statement.
Thomas added that Austria's recession is caused primarily by the declining economic output of industry and trade, which fell by 4.2 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively, year on year in Q3 of 2023.
On a positive note, Austria, which has been plagued by high inflation since early 2022, has seen its annual inflation rate drop from 11.2 percent in January to 5.4 percent in October, mainly thanks to falling energy prices, according to Statistics Austria.
The country also saw robust growth in its tourism sector this year, as it registered a record-high 80.89 million overnight stays in the past summer season (May to October).
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in its latest economic outlook report published on Wednesday, projected the Austrian economy to shrink by 0.4 percent this year. OECD predicted Austria's economic growth to slowly pick up to 0.6 percent in 2024 and 1.5 percent in 2025. ■