New Zealand’s economy shrank at a record rate of 2.9 percent in 2020 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, official data released Thursday (Mar 18) showed.
Statistics New Zealand said the economy contracted just one percent in the final quarter of 2020 but a coronavirus-induced recession earlier in the year meant the annual fall was the highest on record.
“The decline in annual gross domestic product is largely due to the effects of the Alert Level Four national lockdown earlier in 2020,” it said.
A hard lockdown in New Zealand in March-April last year was instrumental in helping contain the virus, with only 26 deaths in a population of five million.
But it tipped the country into its first recession in a decade before the economy roared back with 13.9 percent growth in the third quarter.
– Source: News websites
