* Q4 GDP plunges in Sweden, Denmark and Finland
* Swedish Q4 GDP fall worst on record
* Denmark full-year decline worst since 1955
* Worst GDP fall in 16 years lands Finland in recession
(Adds Swedish finmin comment in paras 9-10)
By Niklas Pollard
STOCKHOLM, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The global financial crisis slammed into the Nordic region with full force in the fourth quarter with the Swedish, Danish and Finnish economies all contracting at record paces, miring them deep in recession.
Hit by a dramatic fall in demand for its many heavyweight exporters, Sweden's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 4.9 percent in the quarter from a year earlier and 2.4 percent from the preceding three months, the Swedish statistics office SCB said on Friday.
The outcome was the worst GDP reading since SCB began publishing seasonally adjusted quarterly data in 1993. It compared with median forecasts of a 2.0 percent annual decline a 1.6 percent fall on a quarterly basis, as seen in a Reuters poll of economists.
"It was a very, very weak figure. It was, in fact, weak across the board," RBS analyst Peter Kaplan said."
"I think that the Riksbank is going to cut all the way to 0.10 percent -- in practice, zero rates. All the Riksbank's models are going to shout 'cut to zero', although the weak crown adds a little uncertainty."
The Swedish crown initially tumbled on the news, with the Euro reaching a record high against the crown while the dollar touched a 6-year high, but it later recovered most of the lost ground.
The Swedish central bank has already slashed rates by a total of almost 4 percentage points since September, to the current level of 1.00 percent, in a running battle to ward off an economic downturn.
Sweden's industrial sector, which includes top-flight manufacturers such as world number two truck maker Volvo and carmakers Saab and Volvo, has so far been hardest hit, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs.
Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said the Nordic country's economy was in a very serious situation but stressed that the centre-right coalition government's top priority remained keeping the public finances in order.
"It is strikingly obvious that the Swedish economy has entered a very powerful slowdown. We are in the middle of a long, cold winter," Borg told journalists.
DANISH WOES
The Danish economy, less reliant on the engineering sector, contracted slightly less than that of its larger neighbour with GDP falling 3.9 percent year-on-year, twice as much as seen by analysts, in the fourth quarter. That led to a fall of 1.3 percent for the year -- the worst since 1955.
It was the first year with negative growth since 1993 for Denmark. The closest comparison would be in 1975, when the Danish economy contracted by 1.2 percent during the oil crisis.
Analysts' predictions for 2009 are getting much grimmer, with several forecasting a contraction in Denmark by as much as 3 percent. "We haven't experienced two years in a row with such negative growth since World War Two," said Steen Bocian, chief economist at Danske Bank.
"The way things look now, one can't rule out a drop in economic activity also in 2010, which would be a long crisis deeper than that of the oil shocks in the 1970s," he said.
Analysts said the worsening GDP outlook meant the Danish government needed to speed up measures to stimulate the economy that it has planned for next year.
"It's become necessary to move forward public investments and to give tax cuts this year," said Helge Pedersen, chief economist at Nordea.
FINLAND IN RECESSION
Elsewhere in the Nordic region, Finland officially entered recession after its economy shrank at the fastest pace in 16 years in October-December and the previous quarter's GDP was also revised to a contraction.
The rapid economic downturn was caused to a large extent by collapsing exports as the financial crisis spilled over to the global economy -- exports fell 14.2 percent from the same period a year earlier.
"All the parts of the economy were doing badly, and especially exports languished," said Nordea economist Reijo Heiskanen. "With this basis, the economy will contract about 2 percent this year."
Finnish GDP fell 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous, and dropped 2.4 percent from the same period a year earlier, the Finnish statistics office said.
Norway is now the only of the four big Nordic countries to remain out of recession, though it is expected to join them there later this year.
Norwegian fourth-quarter GDP figures last week showed mainland gross domestic product, which excludes most of its vast oil and gas sector and ocean-going shipping, shrinking 0.2 percent from the previous quarter.
(Additional reporting by Gelu Sulugiuc in Copenhagen, Tarmo Virki and Eva Lamppu in Helsinki, John Acher in Oslo and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Victoria Main)