Indonesia's Q4 GDP shrinks slightly more than expected

[JAKARTA] Indonesia's economy shrank slightly more than expected in the fourth quarter and suffered its first full-year contraction in over two decades in 2020 as it grappled with the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, official data showed on Friday.

Southeast Asia's largest economy shrank 2.19 per cent year-on-year in the October-December quarter.

Economists in a Reuters poll had expected the economy to contract 2 per cent after it slumped 3.49 per cent in the third quarter from a year earlier.

On a quarterly, non-seasonally adjusted basis, gross domestic product declined 0.42 per cent, after 5.05e pp growth in the July-September period.

Gross domestic product shrank 2.07 per cent for the full-year of 2020, its first contraction since 1998. Economists in the poll had forecast a 2 per cent slump in 2020, following 5.02 per cent growth in 2019.

REUTERS