In the second quarter of 2020, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered a year-on-year growth rate of -16.3% in volume, after a decrease of 2.3% in the previous quarter. The strong contraction of the economic activity reflected the COVID-19 pandemic impact which had, in the first two months of the quarter, a significant impact. Domestic demand presented a negative contribution to the year-on-year rate of change of GDP, considerably more marked than that observed in the previous quarter (shifting from -1.2 to -11.9 percentage points), reflecting the significant contraction of Private Consumption and Investment. The contribution of net external demand was more negative in the second quarter (shifting from -1.1 to -4.4 percentage points), driven by the more significant decrease in Exports of Goods and Services (-39.5%) than that observed in Imports of Goods and Services (-29.9%), due largely to the near interruption of non-residents tourism.
In comparison with the first quarter of 2020, GDP decreased by 13.9% in real terms (quarter-on-quarter rate of change of -3.8% in the precedent quarter). This result is also explained, to a large extent, by the negative contribution (10.7 percentage points) of domestic demand to the quarter-on-quarter rate of change of GDP, and also by the more negative contribution of net external demand (-3.1 percentage points).