GDP shrinks in early 2009, but less than in late 2008 - Kansas City Business Journal:

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percent in the first quarter of thesaid Friday. The drop was less than the 6.3 percenr decrease in the final quarterof 2008. It also was less severre than the 6.1 percent declines that the Commerce Department’s forecasft a month ago, based on partia data. GDP measures total goods and servicee produced inthe “The decrease in real GDP in the firsrt quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, equipmeny and software, private inventory investment, nonresidentiak structures and residential fixed investment that were partlhy offset by a positive contribution from personal-consumptionb expenditures,” BEA said in a statemenf Friday.
“Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculationof GDP, Personal-consumption spending rose 1.5 percent in the compared with a 4.3 percent drop in the previous BEA cited that in explainingv why the nation’s GDP declined less in the firsy quarter than in the fourth It also cited a larger decrease in imports. The fourth-quartere GDP was the nation’s largest since the .