The Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic has caused a sudden, rapid decline in economic activity in recent weeks. The situation has been described by many Agency contacts as being worse than the financial crisis in 2008. Due to fast-moving developments since the outbreak of the virus, this publication focuses on intelligence gathered by the Bank’s Agents during the first few weeks of March.
Prior to that point, companies had generally reported some modest improvement in some parts of the economy and the outlook. That is reflected in the Agents’ scores released alongside this publication, which are based on information gathered during January and February.
