What We Think
May 13, 2020
Chart of the Week (20) - GDP growth rates
As countries scrambled to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 in early March, Governments had to face their possibly worse nightmare by shutting down the economy and asking everyone to just stay at home. The resulting economic implications are still very much fluid as the uncertainty on when this pandemic will be over, or when and how we will return to some form of normality, still reigns.
Preliminary estimates released by Eurostat for the first quarter of 2020 show that GDP is down by 3.8% in the euro area and by 3.5% in the EU when compared to the previous quarter. These are the sharpest declines observed over the reference period, which also covers the 2008 global financial crisis.
Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, GDP in the first quarter of 2020 decreased by 3.3% in the euro area and by 2.7% in the EU.