Dutch economy to shrink by 5% this year, if no more major Covid-19 restrictions
Dutch NewsThe government’s macro-economic think-tank CPB says the Dutch economy will shrink by 5% in 2020, assuming there are no more large-scale new physical contact restrictions needed to combat coronavirus. Prime minister Mark Rutte said last week that the cabinet is thinking ‘very carefully’ about what a third package of measures should include and finance minister Wopke Hoekstra said that a third package would look ‘different’ to previous ones. Should large-scale physical contact restrictions be implemented again, the economy will also shrink in 2021, and unemployment will increase to 10%, the CPB said. Read the forecast Last week, the national statistics agency CBS said the Dutch economy shrank by an ‘unprecedented’ 8.5% in the second quarter of this year, compared with the previous quarter.