The EU's statistical service Eurostat, published the latest quarterly GDP growth rates as well as annual GDP figures for the year 2000 of candidate countries (CCs) which include Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Turkey.

The growth rates are based on changes between corresponding quarters in successive years. In the first quarter of 2001, all CCs continued to record positive growth rates apart from Turkey, whose growth plummeted from +8.3% to -1.9%. A general contraction of growth was evident however, as seven of the twelve CCs for whom quarterly data are published, recorded lower rates than in the final quarter of 2000. Romania displayed the greatest improvement in growth (1.3% to 4.8%) while Latvia enjoyed the highest quarterly growth rate (8.2%).

The combined growth rate of the CC-11 group remained constant at 3.3%, whilst that of the EU-15 fell from 2.9% to 2.5%. The growth of the CC-13 fell steeply (from 5.1% to 1.5%) due to Turkey's high weighting in this group.

According to figures showing the GDP per head in purchasing power standards, Cyprus scores the highest from the group of 13 CCs, followed by Slovenia