Global economic forecasts for major western nations hit by Covid-19 have been revised downwards again, with Italy now set to see its GDP drop by more than 8 per cent during the year.
The latest figures from GlobalData suggest the UK’s economy will shrink by 5.4 per cent, France’s by 6.0 per cent and Germany’s by 5.2 per cent. All three of those forecasts are worse than similar figures produced last week.
Japan has seen an even sharper dip in its economic prospects after a rise in Covid-19 cases prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a national state of emergency. GlobalData now predicts Japan’s GDP to shrink 4.4 per cent in 2020, down from a predicted 3.2 per cent last week.
Overall, the global economy is now expected to shrink by 2.2 per cent in 2020, a slight improvement on the 2.3 per cent predicted last week. That is mainly down to the relative success of containing major coronavirus outbreaks to Europe, North America and parts of Asia.
Major stock markets indices in the UK, France, Germany and Italy were stable this week but remain at below 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
We are using exclusive dynamic figures provided by GlobalData analysts to track key economic indicators in major world economies hit by Covid-19. Deaths from the virus are plotted alongside the indexed performance of each country’s major stock exchange and the number of job vacancies open for applications. Figures are tracked daily from 1 March, 2020.
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