The euro zone's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 2.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, EU statistics agency Eurostat said Friday.

The quarter-on-quarter decline was the worst contraction since the 16-nation euro zone came into being in 1999.

In the 27-nation EU, GDP shrank by 2.5 percent from the previous quarter.

On a year-on-year basis, GDP in the euro zone fell by 4.6 percent in the first quarter, and in the EU it shrank by 4.4 percent.

In both regions, GDP fell by 1.4 percent in the last quarter of2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Major economies of the euro zone -- Germany, France, Italy and Spain -- all saw a worse performance at the same time.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, saw a shrink of 3.8 percent in GDP in the first quarter of this year. That was the fourth straight quarterly contraction and was deeper than a 3-percent fall predicted by economists.

The first-quarter decline was the sharpest quarterly fall in Germany since records began in 1970.

After falling 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, France, the second largest EU economy, recorded a fall of 1.2 percent quarter on quarter.

At the same time, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain witnessed an quarter-on-quarter contraction of 2.4 percent, 2.8 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2009)