LONDON – Official estimates put the UK economy in its worst contraction in more than three centuries in 2020, underscoring the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic in a country that has also suffered one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks.
While the UK is grappling with a new highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes a rapid vaccination boost will allow a gradual reopening of the economy in the coming months, paving the way for a later consumer-driven recovery. in the year.
Gross domestic product shrank 9.9% for the year, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, the largest annual decline among the Group of Seven’s advanced economies. According to preliminary estimates, the French economy contracted by 8.3% and that in Italy by 8.8%. German GDP fell by 5%. The US shrank 3.5%.
However, the data showed that the UK economy grew 4% year-on-year in the last quarter of the year, aided by government spending and a small increase in business investment.
The decline in UK GDP in 2020 was the largest in over 300 years, according to Bank of England data, although the preliminary estimate is likely to be revised. BOE data shows that the economy last recorded a similar decline in 1921, when it contracted 9.7% during the Depression that followed World War I. The economy last showed a greater contraction in 1709, when it plunged 13% during an unusually cold winter known as the Great Frost.