Japan’s pandemic-hit economy shrank last quarter by the most in records going back to 1955, official data is set to show Monday, with a resurgence of the virus threatening to slow a fragile recovery now under way.
Analysts see gross domestic product contracting at an annualized pace of 27 percent in the three months through June. That means the world’s third-largest economy will have declined in size for three straight quarters, hit first by trade wars and a sales tax hike, then by the virus.
The cratering of Japan’s economy follows grim readings from other major countries reeling from the impact of COVID-19. The U.K. contracted 20.4 percent last quarter. The U.S., where the virus still rages on, shrank by nearly a third.