Madrid – The past year 2020 has been a disastrous year for the economy around the world and certainly for Spain, which has been hit hard during the current pandemic, among other things, by tourism. Spain ended 2020 with a contraction of 11% while Ireland was the only country to exit positively with an increase of 3.4%.
everybody Economies With the exception of the Irish, it will be hit hard in 2020 but some countries are more than others. In particular, the economy in southern European countries contracted the most, and Spain was the worst case, with a contraction of 11% of its gross domestic product (PIB) or gross domestic product (GDP).
In Spain, this can be explained to a large extent by the huge shortage of foreign tourists in particular. Due to closures and travel restrictions, the number of foreign vacationers has decreased by 20 million (-75%). However, the tourism sector accounts for 10% of the Spanish economy.
Meanwhile, the European Commission expects the Spanish economy to grow faster in 2021, at + 5.6%, which is, however, less than the + 7.2% that the Spanish government had forecast. The European Commission also expects the best growth for Spain in 2022 of + 5.3%.
But it also went badly in other southern European countries like Greece (-8.2%), Croatia (-8.4%), Portugal (-7.6%), France (-8.3%) and Italy (-8.9%), all of which show bad numbers. , And with the United Kingdom (-9.9%), to the far right of the graph.
In Belgium, there is talk of an economic contraction of -8.2%, while it was -3.8% in the Netherlands and -4.9% in Germany.
Thus Ireland is the only country to come out positively from the numbers with + 3.4% growth thanks to increased exports. The least severe economic declines were recorded in Lithuania (-1.3%), Norway (-2.5%), Poland (-2.7%), Sweden (-2.8%), Switzerland (-2.9), Estonia (-2.9%), Finland (- 2.9%) and Denmark (-3.3%).
