三月全国工业生产者出厂价格同比下降1.5%，显示疫情导致全球经济陷入衰退，二季度全球通缩压力大。请看本报昨日的报道：

China’s factory gate prices fell the most in five months in March, with deflation deepening and set to worsen in coming months as the economic damage wrought by the coroanvirus outbreak at home and worldwide shuts down many countries.

The world’s second-largest economy is trying to restart its engines after weeks of near paralysis to contain the pandemic that had severely restricted business activity, flow of goods and the daily life of people.

报道中的deflation就是“通货紧缩”，体现为物价的全面持续下降。例如：

Deflation is a contraction in the supply of circulated money within an economy, and therefore the opposite of inflation.

通货紧缩就是某一经济体中流通货币供应量减少，是通货膨胀的反义词。