China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades as the spread of the coronavirus shut down the world’s second-largest economy. Gross domestic product (GDP) fell 6.8 per cent year-on-year between January and March, official data released overnight showed. The fall was slightly larger than the 6.5 per cent decline forecast by analysts and reversed a 6 per cent expansion in the fourth quarter of last year. The fall is the first recorded by China since at least 1992 when official quarterly GDP records started. A much smaller-than-expected decline in factory production in March, however, suggested that efforts to restart parts of the economy since February were working.

Source: The Times April 17, 2020 07:52 UTC