LatinNews Daily - 21 August 2020

* Peru’s national statistics institute (Inei) has revealed that the country’s GDP contracted by 30.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2020. This is Peru’s worst quarterly GDP decline on record, and brings the country’s economy officially into recession, following a 3.4% year-on-year contraction in the first quarter. According to Inei, the scale of contraction in the second quarter can be attributed to a 40.3% year-on-year decline in exports, and a 27.7% drop in domestic consumption. The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has driven economic decline in countries across the globe, but Peru is forecast to be among the worst-affected, as early quarantine restrictions and extensive emergency spending failed to contain an outbreak that has caused 27,034 deaths in the country as of 20 August, at the third-highest per capita death rate in the world.

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