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Business Matters: US economy suffers sharpest contraction in decades

Picture: A closed shop in California. Picture credit: Getty Images.

31/07/2020 GMT

US economy suffers sharpest contraction in decades

BBC World Service - Business Matters, US economy suffers sharpest contraction in decades

US economy contracted by 9.5% between April and June

Official data shows that the world's biggest economy contracted by 9.5% in three months. That's worse than at any point since the US government started keeping quarterly records in 1947. We hear from Professor Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University. Black Lives Matter protests have added to a continuing backlash against brands selling skin-whitening creams in South Asia; Nikhil Inamdar reports from Mumbai on an industry under threat. We talk to listener, Elizabeth Pendleton, in Colorado Springs about the unemployment picture in Colorado. The BBC's Ed Butler reports on the world’s biggest lithium deposit; it's in Bolivia and is worth billions of dollars to a world scrambling to reduce its reliance on carbon. Plus, we're joined throughout the programme by Tony Nash, co-founder and Chief Economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas and from Lahore in Pakistan, Mehmal Safraz, co-founder of The Current PK. (Picture: A closed shop in California. Picture credit: Getty Images.)

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