The trade balance has been adjusting mainly through a sharp contraction in imports.
"We're still seeing growth in most areas of expenditure but this sharp contraction in aid".
He averages three a day, he said, a sharp contraction from his more indulgent past.
After a sharp contraction in 2009, the economy recorded the third-fastest rate of growth in the G20 last year.
A sharp contraction of GDP means that subsequent growth will be calculated from a much smaller base.
Austerity policies imposed by the authorities contributed to a sharp contraction of the Greek economy last year.
The sharp contraction in the health care industry has economic effects, too, for coffee shops and florists and medical-supply companies.
The sharp contraction in the United States housing industry last year had a particularly noticeable effect on remittances because many Mexicans are employed in construction.
Weakened first by oil price volatility and then by the current, sharp contraction in economic growth, nearly 30 airlines have vanished over the past 18 months.
Thus, at this point, a levelling out or a modest softening of housing activity seems more likely than a sharp contraction".
A decade ago, it took "tax hikes, a sharp contraction in military spending, and an unprecedented economic expansion to achieve fiscal consolidation," the I.M.F.
