China’s economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on April 17, 2020. The contraction is the first in the world’s second-largest economy since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, as well as since official quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) records were started in 1992. The plunge confirmed the economic damage done by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has paralysed China’s production and spending.