Chinese economy shrinks 6.8% in Q1, worst since 1976
Beijing, April 17
China’s GDP took the worst hit since the disastrous Cultural Revolution in 1976, plummeting by 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020 as the country took unprecedented measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic that brought the world’s second largest economy to a standstill.
China’s GDP stood at 20.65 trillion yuan ($2.91 trillion approx) in the first quarter of 2020 amid the Covid-19 impact, down 6.8% year-on-year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday.
The figure slightly rebounded from a drop of 20.5% in the first two months, the NBS data said.
On a slowdown mode, China’s economy grew by 6.1% in 2019, the lowest annual growth rate in 29 years amid the bruising trade war with the US but it remained above the psychologically important mark of 6%. The GDP in 2019 expanded to $14.38 trillion from $13.1 trillion in 2018.
But the coronavirus which devastated China and the world ever since it broke out in Wuhan in December last year has dealt a major blow to the Chinese economy which was already in a slowdown mode in the last few years due to steady shrinking of its exports markets.
As China shut down central Hubei province and its capital Wuhan for over two months since January 23 to contain the virus for over two months, the entire country came to a standstill to prevent the Covid-19 from spreading. — PTI
