Portugal fourth-quarter growth slows, full-year strongest in decades

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's economic growth decelerated to 0.2% in the fourth quarter from 0.4% in the previous three months, still producing the strongest full-year expansion in 35 years before a projected steep slowdown this year, official data showed on Tuesday.

The National Statistics Institute (INE) said in its flash estimate that gross domestic product also rose 3.1% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier after 4.9% growth in the third quarter, with private consumption and investment dropping amid high inflation.

Full-year economic growth reached 6.7% after 5.5% in 2021 and was largely in line with the government's latest forecast. The government expects growth to slow down to a mere 1.3% this year due to the impact of high inflation and rising interest rates.

(Reporting by Andrei Khalip and Joao Vicente in Gdansk, editing by Sergio Goncalves)