Colombia's economic output shrinks 9.5% in July

BOGOTA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Colombia's economy contracted 9.5% in July, its best performance since March when the country began more than five months of coronavirus lockdown, the government said on Friday.

The lockdown finished at the end of August. Gross domestic product contracted 15.7% during the second quarter because of the quarantine measures.

The figure for July was an improvement on contractions of 20.2%, 16.2% and 11% in April, May and June, respectively, according to figures from the DANE statistics agency.

It was the strongest figure since a 4.1% contraction in March.

The agriculture sector was up by 3.5% in July compared with the same month last year, while real estate and financial activities each grew about 1.6%.

(Reporting by Carlos Vargas Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Tom Brown)

((julia.cobb@thomsonreuters.com; +57-316-389-7187;))

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