Croatia's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as compared to the same quarter of 2008, the country's Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. 'The real decrease of GDP of 6.7 percent is the biggest one in the period from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2009,' the bureau said in a statement. Statistics for the first quarter of this year show that all spending components of GDP dropped in real terms, except for government spending, which increased. Household spending, the biggest GDP component, dropped 9.9 percent in real terms. The first quarter of this year was the second consecutive quarter marked by a drop in household spending, after a 3.2 percent drop in the last quarter of 2008. Gross investments in fixed assets dropped even more, by 12.4 percent. In the last quarter of 2008, that GDP component saw a real increase of 3.5 percent. The export and import of goods and services, which saw a drop in the last quarter of last year, dropped by 14.2 percent and 20.9 percent respectively. Government spending was the only spending component of GDP that increased in relation to the first quarter of last year, by 3.9 percent, which is the highest quarterly growth rate of government spending since the third quarter of 2007. Gross Value Added was 4 percent down in real terms from the first quarter of 2008. This drop was mostly due to a drop in real value added in industrial production (10.3 percent) and commerce ( 15 percent). 