BEIJING - China’s economy shrank for the first time since at least 1992 in the first quarter, as the coronavirus outbreak paralysed production and spending, raising pressure on authorities to do more to stop mounting job losses.
Nomura expects Beijing to deliver a stimulus package in the near-term, which could be financed by the central bank through various channels. Analysts expect nearly 30 million job losses this year due to stuttering work resumptions and plunging global demand, outpacing the 20-plus million layoffs during the 2008-09 financial crisis.
For 2020, analysts polled by Reuters expected China’s economic growth to slow sharply to 2.5 per cent from 6.1 per cent in 2019, which would be the weakest clip since 1976, the final year of the decade-long Cultural Revolution that wrecked the economy.