India's GDP Shows Covid-19 Has Stranglehold on One of World's Largest Economies

By Eric Bellman

NEW DELHI--The coronavirus pandemic has strangled one of the most powerful engines of economic growth in the world: India's 1.3 billion consumers.

The country's gross domestic product shrank 7.5% last quarter compared to a year earlier, India announced Friday, as Covid-19 has transformed the world's fastest growing economy into one of the world's fastest contracting.

With more than 9.3 million people infected and 135,000 killed by the virus, India has been one of the world's hardest hit by the pandemic. Even after the South Asian nation started ending the world's largest lockdown in stages from May, people have been staying home, conserving their rupees and riding out the storm.

India's economy has been hammered by the pandemic, with the latest GDP data marking the first time in decades that the country's growth has contracted for two consecutive quarters.

By contrast, in the most recent quarter, the U.S. economy contracted 2.9% year-over-year, while China's economy grew 4.9%.

--Vibhuti Agarwal contributed to this article.

Write to Eric Bellman at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-27-20 0731ET