Mexico's gross domestic product (GDP) plunged a record 18.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, compared to the same period last year, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) said on Thursday.
Compared to the previous quarter, GDP fell 17.3 per cent, according to the INEGI's preliminary estimate of seasonally adjusted figures.
Year-on-year, industrial activity plummeted 26 per cent in the second quarter, while the services sector, which contributes the most to GDP, fell 15.6 per cent, and agricultural activity dipped 0.7 per cent, said the report from INEGI.
INEGI said it will publish the definitive results of the second quarter on Aug. 26.
If these figures bear out, it would mark the worst economic contraction in Mexico since the agency began to keep records in the 1990s, said INEGI's president Julio Santaella.
The available data shows Mexico's economy fell an accumulated 10.2 per cent in the first half of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019.
Analyst Marco Oviedo, a director and chief economist for Mexico at Barclays, said the sequential figures signal a significant "rebound" in the economy in June, when the country began to reactivate several economic sectors after months of pandemic lockdown measures.
"This contraction has nothing to do with the economic cycle, it's the result of the lockdown," Oviedo said on Twitter once INEGI released its report.
"The rebound should continue in July and August -- good news," he added.
According to the analyst, Mexico's economy will not tank by more than 10.5 per cent in 2020, as the International Monetary Fund forecast last month.
