Following the COVID-19 pandemic-containment measures around the world, real gross domestic product in OECD countries has suffered an unprecedented 9.8% fall in the second quarter of this year.
The provisional estimates indicated the steepest drop ever recorded, significantly larger than the 2.3% decline in the first quarter of 2009, at the height of the financial crisis.
Among G7 countries, the world’s seven largest economies, GDP fell most dramatically by 20.4% in the UK. In France, where lockdown measures were among the most stringent, GDP declined by 13.8%, after a drop of 5.9% in the previous quarter.
GDP also fell sharply in Italy (12.4%), Canada (12%) and Germany (9.7%), following respective declines of 5.4%, 2.1% and 2% in the first quarter.
In the US, where many states introduced ‘stay-at-home’ measures in late March, second-quarter GDP contracted by 9.5%, after a 1.3% decline in the previous quarter.
In Japan, where containment measures were less stringent, GDP contracted by 7.8% in the second quarter and 0.6% in the previous quarter.
Year-on-year GDP growth for the OECD area dropped by 10.9% in the second quarter of 2020, with the UK recording the sharpest annual fall of 21.7%.
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