Prague - The Czech Republic's economy slowed down significantly in late 2008, confirming that falling demand in Western Europe was choking the export-dependent economy, revised government data showed Wednesday.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk by 0.9 per cent in the last three months of 2008 compared to the previous quarter, the Czech Statistical Office said, revising down its earlier estimate of a 0.6-per-cent contraction.

It was the first quarter-on-quarter drop in a decade, the statisticians said.

The agency also revised down the fourth-quarter annual growth to 0.7 per cent, down from a 1-per-cent estimate published February 13.

The worse-than-expected results in the banking and public sectors, which were released after the initial GDP estimate, were behind the downward revision, the office said.

For all of 2008, the once-booming Czech economy slowed down to 3.1 per cent, down by more than a half from 6.5 per cent recorded in 2007, according to the revised data. The February 13 estimate put the 2008 growth at 3.5 per cent.

The Central European country of 10.3 million still fared better than some other formerly-communist states. But the latest data prompted analysts to say that the economy is also entering a recession.

The Czech Republic was spared a direct blow by the global financial crisis but the economy is hurting from a drop in orders from its chief export market, the eurozone. (dpa)