LONDON – The British economy has reportedly recorded its biggest contraction in more than three centuries in 2020, highlighting the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic in a country that has also suffered one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks.
Although the UK is facing a new, highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hopeful that a rapid vaccination process will enable a gradual reopening of the economy in the coming months, which will pave the way later. for a consumer-driven setback. in the year.
Gross domestic product shrank by 9.9% over the year as a whole, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, the largest annual decline among the Group of Seven advanced economies. According to preliminary estimates, the French economy shrank by 8.3% and Italy’s by 8.8%. German GDP decreased by 5%. The US shrank by 3.5%.
According to the Bank of England, the decline in UK GDP in 2020 is the largest in more than 300 years, although the preliminary estimate is likely to be revised. BOE data show that the economy last recorded a comparable decline in 1921, when it shrank by 9.7% during the Depression that followed World War I. The economy last recorded a major contraction in 1709, when it tumbled 13% during an unusually cold winter known as the Great Frost.
Britain was particularly hard hit in the second quarter of 2020 when a rural closure took effect. Social distance and the closure of restaurants, bars, hotels and theaters were painful for the economy, where a larger share of national income is spent on leisure and similar services requiring face-to-face contact than in other comparable economies.