China suffers first GDP decline on record as coronavirus cripples economy

China suffered its worst economic contraction in the first quarter of 2020 as the coronavirus outbreak paralysed production and spending, whichmakes recovery harder than initially expected. This is the first recorded decline in China's GDP data since it started publishing in 1992. According to AP, this was China's worst performance since before market-style economic reforms started in 1979.

The world's second-largest economy shrank 6.8% from a year ago in the three months ending in March after factories, shops and travel were closed to contain the infection, official data showed Friday.

While China has managed to get large parts of its economy up and