The figure published by the National Institute of Statistics leaves no room for doubt: Spain’s GDP fell by 11% in 2020, the worst result in history in peacetime. Although Spain has not been the only country that has suffered this financial setback derived from the pandemic, its fall has been one of the hardest.
The result could have been worse, since the economy experienced a certain improvement in the last quarter compared to the previous one (0.4%), but it must also be remembered that the trend it wasn’t exactly positive: in 2019 Spain grew by 2%, the lowest figure since 2014.
How has the health emergency affected other countries? In general, the year 2020 has been one of the worst in memory in decades, although looking in this mirror does not return a very optimistic reflection.
France
France it suffered an 8% drop in its GDP in 2020, according to data collected by Europa Press. Of course, the French country had anticipated exactly the same fall that Spain ended up suffering: 11%.
Its last quarter, with a decline of 1.3% instead of the expected 4%, and a second in which it rose 18.5% after two first falls (5.9% and 13.7%) had a lot to do with watch.
U.S
In the case of the 3.5% drop in 2020 in U.SAccording to the estimate of the Office of Economic Analysis collected by EFE, it is necessary to go back to the hangover of World War II to find a lower figure. Since 1946 (-11.6%) there was not such a bad year and the last contraction dates from 2009 (-2.5%).
The third quarter, with growth of 33.4%, partially mitigated the first drop of 5% and the subsequent drop of 31.4% in the second quarter. The year ended with a growth of 4%.
Germany
Meanwhile, in Germany GDP fell 5%, according to federal statistics office Destatis. In the last 10 years the figure had always been positive, although in 2009, the last year in negative, the fall was slightly greater: 5.7%.
China
Only China seems to have been able to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic enough for its GDP to grow during 2020. Specifically, 2.3% compared to the previous period … Although since 1976 there has not been an increase as subtle as that of last year. Only during the first quarter the figures fell (6.8%); the remaining three experienced an increase (3.2%, 4.9% and 6.5%, respectively).
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