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With the coronavirus, a record recession for the world economy

The coronavirus crisis caused an unprecedented contraction of most of the world’s major economies in the second quarter, apart from China, which is also the only one to escape a recession, i.e. two quarters in a row of decline in activity.

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Here is a reminder of the main changes in gross domestic product (GDP), calculated compared to the previous quarter. The figures are unless otherwise stated those of the national statistical institutes:

Germany, the first European economy less hard hit by COVID-19 than its neighbors, saw its GDP plunge 10.1% in the second quarter, after falling 2% in the first. The largest GDP decline on record so far was 4.7% in the first quarter of 2009.

In France, which has experienced stricter and longer confinement than its neighbor across the Rhine, the quarry is more severe with a GDP plummeting by 13.8% in the spring, after – 5.9% between January and March . The worst quarter ever recorded since the post-war period by the National Institute of Statistics was until then the spring of 1968, weighed down by the general strike in May.

Italy, which experienced weak growth before a health crisis and whose richest region, Lombardy, was the European epicenter for several weeks, entered recession with a GDP drop of 5.4% in the first quarter, then 12.4% in the second.

Spain saw its economy shrink by 18.5% in the second quarter after 5.2% in the first, including a 60% drop in tourism revenues in the spring and a decline of more than a third in exports.

The euro zone as a whole saw its GDP contract by 12.1% in the spring after – 3.6% in the previous quarter, ie “by far” the largest decline “since the start of the time series in 1995” from the European statistical office Eurostat.

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With the coronavirus, a record recession for the world economy


The United Kingdom, for its part, is suffering the worst recession in Europe, a continent of which it is also the country where the epidemic has killed the most, while its economy is still linked to that of the EU until the end. of the year. GDP slumped 20.4% in the second quarter after slipping 2.2% in the first.

In the United States, the world’s largest economy, the fall was 9.5% in the second quarter, after a decline of 1.3% in the first, according to figures published by the OECD. US government statistics publish variations at an annualized rate (-32.9% in the second quarter) which are not directly comparable with those of other countries.

China, the planet’s second-largest economy and cradle of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, avoided the recession by stemming the epidemic, allowing it to return to the path of growth. GDP rebounded 11.5% in the second quarter, after falling 10% in the first. Compared to the same period last year, the drop was 6.8% in the first quarter and the rebound of 3.2% in the second. A level of growth which remains however much lower than that recorded by China in recent decades.

Japan announced in mid-May that it had entered a recession in the first quarter, but with a decline in GDP finally limited to 0.6%, after a 1.9% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2019. The world’s third-largest economy does not. has yet to release statistics for the second quarter.

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