LONDON – The British economy has contracted the most in three centuries in 2020, according to official estimates, highlighting the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on a country that has also suffered one of the deadliest outbreaks in the world.
Although the UK is facing a new highly contagious variant of coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes a quick vaccination action will allow a gradual reopening of the economy in the coming months, paving the way for a consumer-oriented return in the year.
Gross domestic product fell 9.9% year-on-year, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, the largest annual decline of the Group of Seven Advanced Economies. The French economy fell by 8.3% and the Italian contracted by 8.8%, according to provisional estimates. German GDP fell by 5%. The US decreased by 3.5%.
However, data show that the UK economy grew at an annualized rate of 4% in the last quarter of the year, helped by government spending and a small increase in business investment.
The decline in UK GDP in 2020 was the largest in 300 years, according to Bank of England data, although the preliminary estimate is likely to be revised. BOE data show that the last economy saw a comparable decline in 1921, when it fell by 9.7% during the depression following World War I. The great frost.