* Swedish Feb industry output down 22.9 percent yr/yr
* Finnish Feb industry output falls 22.2 percent
* Analysts see no immediate rebound in orders
(Adds background, details, analyst quotes)
By Mia Shanley
STOCKHOLM, April 9 (Reuters) - Swedish and Finnish industrial output posted more sharp falls in February as a global downturn delivered further blows to economies already deep in recession.
Industrial production and orders across Europe have slumped and the region, like much of the world, faces the worst economic crisis in decades.
Sweden and Finland saw another month where manufacturing contracted sharply, adding to dismal figures stretching back over much of the past year.
The outlook remains dark.
"It is a little early to say that ...there is reason to expect industrial production to bounce back soon," said Michael Grahn, an analyst at Danske Markets.
"It is more likely that inventories need to be drawn down further. Inventories have not sunk at as fast a pace as sales have fallen."
Swedish production fell 22.9 percent year on year in February while industry orders slid 30 percent, Sweden's statistics office said on Thursday.
The figures are expected to weigh on Sweden's first quarter GDP following a deep 4.9 percent contraction year on year in the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter reading was the worst since the statistics office began publishing seasonally adjusted quarterly data in 1993.
"We believe, provisionally, that Swedish GDP will fall by 5 to 6 percent (in the first quarter) compared to the same quarter in the previous year," said Olle Holmgren, an analyst at SEB, regarding the production figures.
The outcome could be even worse, he said.
The Swedish government sees the economy contracting at 4.2 percent this year -- its fastest pace since the 1940s.
HEAVY METAL
In Finland, which said this week that output would be hit harder than the painful recession of the early 1990s, production adjusted for working days fell 22.2 percent year on year in February, with output in its key metal and paper industries shrinking by almost one third.
"There is weakness everywhere ... the worst was the forestry sector, but the problem there is not just cyclical, it's structural," said Handelsbanken economist Tuulia Asplund, referring to the sector's prolonged downturn due to weak demand and oversupply.
Asplund said the most worrying data was seen in the metals sector which posted a steep decline in output.
"This sector was one that had kept up pretty well and supported the Finnish economy for many years," she said.
Finland's government has forecast the economy will contract 5 percent this year and said it may not see growth until 2011.
The country's economy contracted at its fastest pace in 16 years in the fourth quarter of 2008, when GDP dropped 2.4 percent from a year earlier.