SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean will contract by a record 5.3% in 2020 as the coronavirus outbreak ravages the region, unleashing the worst social and economic crisis in decades, a United Nations agency said in report issued on Tuesday.

The crisis will hit hardest in South America, a region especially dependent on exports to China and impacted by plummeting commodity prices, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in the report.

Mexico will also be hard hit, with a contraction of 6.5% this year, according to the report.

“The crisis in the region in 2020... will be the worst in its entire history,” the agency said. “To find a contraction of comparable magnitude, you need to go back to the Great Depression of 1930 (-5%) or even more to 1914 (-4.9%).”

The shriveling regional economy will plunge almost 30 million people into poverty and deepen already alarming levels of extreme poverty in some countries, the agency warned. Unemployment will spike to 11.5% this year from 8.1% in 2019.

Latin America has logged more than 100,000 cases of the novel coronavirus to date, according to a Reuters count based on official figures.

The timing could hardly be worse. In the five years prior to the outbreak, between 2014 and 2019, growth had sagged to just 0.4%, its lowest rate since the 1950s, according to the ECLAC report.

The virus also catches much of Latin America with already yawning fiscal deficits, increasing debt and limited room to maneuver, making any eventual solution more difficult and costly, the agency said.

“In the current crisis, tax revenues will be even more affected by the strong contraction in economic activity and depressed prices for raw materials,” the report said.

The agency estimates that Brazil´s gross domestic product will contract 5.2% in 2020, versus a prior estimate of 1.7% growth. Argentina´s economy, meanwhile, is expected to shrink by 6.5%, versus a previous prediction of 1.3% growth.

The U.N. estimates are largely in line with a recent International Monetary Fund report that predicted Latin America’s economy would contract by 5.2% this year. The IMF also warned of a lost decade of no-growth in the region between 2015 and 2025.