While a 14.3 percent decline is hardly a full recovery, it does indicate that the economy bottomed out in the second quarter, as the more optimistic economists predicted. Source: Statistics Lithuania

VILNIUS — Newly released statistics on the Lithuanian economy indicate that the bottom of the country’s steep downturn has been reached.

First estimates of gross domestic product show that the Lithuanian economy contracted by 14.3 percent in the third quarter compared to the second quarter of 2009, the Statistics Department said in a press release Tuesday.

Vita Ramanauskaitė, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economy told Baltic Reports that the figures mean the recession is ending.

“It gives the minister optimism as the GDP result is better than foretasted. So we can officially say the recession is over,” she told Baltic Reports.

The new figures mean that annual GDP has contracted 15.7 percent. The figures were vastly better than expected with some banks predicting year-on-year GDP figures to contract as much as 25 percent.

The Prime Minister’s economic adviser told Baltic Reports that the figures show that the Lithuanian economy has started to grow.

“If you look at the data, quarter on quarter, seasonally adjusted, Lithuania has grown 6 percent. It means we have reached the bottom and we are growing, but we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mykolas Majauskas, the prime minister’s economic adviser, said. “We need fiscal consolidation and economic stimulus and deficit control and to continue structural reforms.”

Majauskas said reforms in higher education, health care — where hospitals will be consolidated and governance improved — and social sector reforms would help steady the economy.

“We have seen the first signs but we need to be cautious. we cannot relax and we need to be cautious with forecasts,” Majauskas said.