Economics
China Suffers Historic Economic Slump With Hard Recovery Ahead
- GDP shrinks 6.8% in first quarter amid virus shutdowns
- Fixed-asset investment plunges 16.1% in first three months
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The coronavirus pushed China’s economy into its first contraction in decades in the first quarter, with the spread of the disease around the world now leaving the nation reliant on fragile local demand to spur a recovery.
Gross domestic product shrank 6.8% from a year ago, the worst performance since at least 1992 when official releases of quarterly GDP started and missing the median forecast of a 6% drop. The economy hasn’t contracted on a full-year basis since the end of the Mao era in the 1970s.