HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s economy shrank by 9.0% in the second quarter from a year earlier, the government said on Wednesday, as the coronavirus pandemic weighed heavily on consumer spending, trade and tourism in the global financial hub.
It was the fourth consecutive quarter of contraction for the economy, which was hit hard by anti-government protests last year and more recently by the global health crisis.
The decline in gross domestic product (GDP) eased slightly from a revised 9.1% contraction in January-March, which was the worst quarterly drop since records began in 1974. Moody’s Analytics had expected a contraction of 11.9%, Capital Economics 10.5%, Bank of East Asia 9% and ING 8%.
But on a quarterly, seasonally adjusted basis, the economy shrank just 0.1%, compared with a revised 5.5% contraction in the previous three months, advance estimates showed.
(Reporting by Donny Kwok and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Kim Coghill)
