Washington, July 31 (DPA) The US economy shrank at a one-percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2009, according to a preliminary estimate Friday by the US Commerce Department.

The figure was better than economists expected and signals that the longest US recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s has slowed dramatically.

But first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) was revised down sharply to a 6.4-percent contraction, the worst three-month stretch in 27 years, from a 5.5-percent drop reported last month by the department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Economists had forecast about a 1.5-percent contraction in the second quarter of the year. Friday's figure was the first of three estimates.