Portugal turns from recession into growth to beat bailout

Portugal, fighting to emerge from a bailout, more than halved its recession last year when the economy shrank by 1.4 percent, official data showed on Friday.

A key factor was that the economy grew in the last quarter of 2013.

The shrinkage for the year compared with a recession of 3.2 percent in 2012, and of 1.3 percent in 2011.

The latest data from the national statistics institute said that in the last quarter of last year the economy managed to grow by 0.5 percent from output in the third quarter.

And on a 12-month comparison, it grew by 1.6 percent.