Economic Forecast: Western nations revised downwards again – UK drop off ‘particularly steep’

The economic forecasts for the biggest Western nations affected by Covid-19 have been revised downwards once again — with the UK seeing a particularly steep drop-off.

Italy’s GDP is expected to drop by more than 9.3% in 2020, according to the latest forecasts from GlobalData.

France’s GDP is set to drop by 7.3% during the year, the UK’s by 7.0% and Germany’s by 6.3%.

The UK saw the biggest downwards revision from last week, when it’s economy was expected to shrink by just 5.4% in 2020.

The news came on the day the UK registered the highest known Covid-19 death toll in Europe.

The US economy is now expected to shrink by 5.2%. Japan’s is expected to shrink by 4.3%, slightly less than the 4.4% forecast last week.

Stock markets have generally remained stable across all markets in our tracker.