World Bank: Croatia's GDP to shrink 9.3% in 2020 before growing 5.4% in 2021

NEWS 08.06.202020:41
AFP

The World Bank said in its June 2020 Global Economic Prospects that Croatia's Gross Domestic Product will shrink by 9.3% in 2020, but it will go up 5.4% in 2021, adding that the global economy will go into the deepest recession since the Second World War.

The World Bank has thus downgraded its prospects for Croatia, given that ion early April it expected Croatia’s GDP to go down 6.2% due to the corona virus pandemic.

The World Bank expects Croatia’s economy to shrink the most in the region of European and Central Asian countries, followed by Bulgaria and Russia.

The latest forecasts of the Croatian economic recovery in 2021 have been revised from 4.6%, as predicted in April, to 5.4%.

According to World Bank forecasts, the global economy will shrink by 5.2% this year. That would represent the deepest recession since the Second World War, with the largest fraction of economies experiencing declines in per capita output since 1870, the World Bank says in its report.

The Covid-19 recession is singular in many respects and is likely to be the deepest one in advanced economies since the Second World War and the first output contraction in emerging and developing economies in at least the past six decades, said World Bank Prospects Group Director Ayhan Kose.

“The current episode has already seen by far the fastest and steepest downgrades in global growth forecasts on record. If the past is any guide, there may be further growth downgrades in store, implying that policymakers may need to be ready to employ additional measures to support activity,” said Kose.