The world is in a world of pain and that pain is going to follow it into 2021, the year that vaccine production and distribution is expected to bring global relief from a devastating pandemic, economist Mike Schussler has said.
Speaking at the Operations Conference 2020 of the Road freight Association, Schussler described Covid-19 as the most devastating global crisis seen in almost 100 years.
Not since the 1930s, he said, had the world’s GDP figures dipped as drastically as they had during this year’s economic devastation.
Based on GDP data from countries around the world, Schussler said of the larger economies only two would post positive growth figures for 2020, namely Egypt and China, respectively recording growth of 3.6% and 1.8%.
As for the rest of the world – there’s blood on the floor and it’s going to stay there for a while.
Worst of the lot are countries such as Argentina, Spain and Peru where GDP growth has decreased by 11.3%, 12.7% and 13%.
As for South Africa, GDP growth for 2020 is down 7.7%.
Negative GDP stats for the year for other countries are as follows: Indonesia, -2.2%; Pakistan, -2.8%; Sweden, -3.8%; United States, -3.8%; Poland, -4.4%; Australia, 4.4%; Russia, -4.4%; Brazil, -5.2%; Canada, -5.8%; Germany, -5.8%; Chile, -5.9%; Singapore, 6%; Japan, -6.4%; Malaysia, -8%; Euro area, -8.3%; France, -9.5%; India, -9.8%.
What does it all mean?
In short, said Schussler, the world’s GDP focus had shifted east.
On the bright side, he added that South Africa would notice phenomenal growth in the first quarter of 2021.
It’s important to note though that the bounce back from the coronavirus will be off a broken base, and once the rapid recovery data is assessed, it will still show how destructive the virus has been.
