Dutch economy shrinks 1.7% in first quarter, biggest decline in 11 years

Preliminary figures show the Dutch economy contracted by 1.7% in the first quarter of this year, the national statistics office CBS said on Friday.

This is the biggest quarter on quarter drop since the first quarter of 2009, when GDP fell 3.6%, the CBS said. GDP had been rising steadily for the past 23 quarters.

The Q1 drop is largely due to a downturn in consumer spending, the CBS said. Household spending fell 2.7% in the first three months of the year, compared with the final quarter of 2019. Government spending also fell 1.4% while investments fell 1.1% and imports and exports fell 3% and 3.5% respectively.

‘The picture during the first quarter is mixed,’ the CBS said. ‘The economy continued to grow in the first two months. But since the second half of March, the global coronavirus outbreak and related measures have caused an unprecedented decline in economic activity.’