International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Gita Gopinath on Wednesday tweeted a graph suggesting that India’s GDP may have shrunk the most among G-20 countries in the April-June quarter, at 25.6%.
In her tweet, accompanying the graph, Gopinath wrote: “In #GreatLockdown Q2 2020 GDP growth at historical lows. Graph puts G20 growth numbers on a comparable scale, quarter-on-quarter non-annualized. Should expect rebounds in Q3 but 2020 overall will see major contractions. China recovers strongly in Q2 after collapse in Q1.”
In #GreatLockdown Q2 2020 GDP growth at historical lows. Graph puts G20 growth numbers on a comparable scale, quarter-on-quarter non-annualized. Should expect rebounds in Q3 but 2020 overall will see major contractions. China recovers strongly in Q2 after collapse in Q1. pic.twitter.com/OcgaZsrAD6
— Gita Gopinath (@GitaGopinath) September 2, 2020
The graph shared by Gita Gopinath shows all countries except China registering GDP contraction. While China’s economy is shown to have expanded by 12.3 per cent over the March quarter, the UK and India were the most affected.
The Indian economy contracted by 23.9 per cent in the April-June quarter of this fiscal amid the COVID-19 crisis, official data showed on Monday. The gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded by 5.2 per cent in the corresponding April-June period of 2019-20, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 25 to curb the spread of coronavirus infections. The Centre began easing the lockdown for certain economic activities from April 20 onwards. Most rating agencies had projected contraction in India’s GDP for the first quarter of 2020-21.
Although most people expected India’s GDP to show substantial contraction when the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the data for the first quarter (April, May, June) of the current financial year on Monday, the broad consensus was that the decline would not exceed 20%. As it turns out, the GDP contracted by 24% per cent in Q1.
In other words, the total value of goods and services produced in India in April, May and June this year is 24% less than the total value of goods and services produced in India in the same three months last year.
