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UK economy suffers record 9.9% slump in 2020

12 February 2021 14:46 (UTC +04:00)

Britain’s coronavirus-ravaged economy shrank 9.9% in 2020, the biggest annual fall in output since modern records began, but it avoided heading back towards recession at the end of last year, official figures showed on Friday, APA reports citing Reuters.

Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.0% between October and December, the Office for National Statistics said, at the top end of the range of forecasts by economists in a Reuters poll.

This makes it unlikely that Britain will see two straight quarters of contraction - the standard definition of recession in Europe - even though the economy is set to shrink sharply in early 2021 due to the effects of a third COVID lockdown.

Britain’s economy grew 1.2% in December alone, after a 2.3% fall in output in November when there was a partial lockdown, leaving output 6.3% lower than in February before the start of the pandemic.