OREANDA-NEWS. During the second quarter of 2020, Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 12.8 % compared to the first quarter and by 17.7 % compared to the same period of the last year. This was announced on August 31 in a press release published on the website of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).

It is a record drop since 1995. At the end of July, Istat published a forecast of a 12.4 % and 17.3 % decline in national GDP in the second quarter, respectively, but the fall in the Italian economy turned out to be more significant. The economic recession is a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine that was introduced in the country.

Final consumption expenditure in the second quarter of 2020 fell by 8.7 % compared with the first. The volumes of export and import of goods and services decreased by 26.4 and 20.5 %, respectively.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of infected people in Italy has exceeded 268 thousand people. Almost 35.5 thousand patients died.