Asia's stock markets fall on slumping German economy

BANGKOK (AP) - Disappointing news about Germany's economy sent Asian stock markets down on Friday.

Europe's biggest economy contracted a worse-than-expected 0.6 per cent in the last quarter of last year as recession deepened across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro. It was Germany's worst performance since early 2009, amid a global recession.

The worry for European policymakers is that output is declining beyond weaker, debt-laden economies like Greece and Spain. France, Europe's second-biggest economy, also saw output drop.

"A number of analysts have been making the case for quite some time now that the worst in Europe is probably behind us; however, the steepness of the contractions... appears to have given markets pause," said Mr Michael Hewson of CMC Markets in an e-mail commentary.