Page 12 - economic report 2021

Developed economies suf ered more
from the economic ef ects of the GLOBAL GDP GROWTH Chart 1.1
Annual variation rates at constant prices, in %
pandemic than emerging economies.

GDP recovery was uneven depending on the
geographical area. In the USA, for example,
GDP had already recovered the level of the
fourth quarter of 2019 by the second quarter
of 2021. On the other hand, Eurozone GDP
did not reach this level until the fourth quarter
of 2021. However, some European countries
that were heavily impacted by the crisis due
to high exposure to foreign tourism, like Emerging and developing Advanced economies
Spain, will not recover pre-pandemic levels of economies
economic activity until 2022 or 2023. For their f: IMF forecasts (July 2022).
part, emerging economies as a whole regained
Source: IMF.
pre-pandemic levels, since they only lost 2%
in 2020 and grew 6.8% in 2021. The low
economic impact on developing economies can The Asian economies came out best
be explained by the fact that the tertiary sector from the COVID-19 crisis.
is smaller and it was services that suffered most
from restrictions. This trend contrasts with that
of advanced economies, which grew 5.2% in 2021 after falling 4.5% in 2020. So, the special
income transfers approved for developed economies were not enough to avoid a significant loss
10
of economic activity, especially when compared to developing economies.

As for developing and emerging economies, those in Asia saw the most positive performance,
especially China, which managed to grow 8.1% in 2021 (after +2.2% in 2020), boosted by good
management of the pandemic with the “zero-Covid” strategy, and also by the resilience seen in
private consumption and foreign trade. It is important to highlight the dynamism of India which,
The external environment of the Andorran economy | I. The international economy
with 8.7% growth in 2021, easily managed to amend the 6.6% contraction of the first year of
the pandemic. As for the Middle East and Central Asia, GDP grew 5.8% in 2021 after the slight
contraction in the previous year (-2.9%). Some of the countries that saw the strongest growth
were the oil exporters, which benefited from rising oil prices, such as Iraq (5.9%), Iran (4.0%)
or Saudi Arabia (3.2%). Among the developing
economies in Europe was notably Russia, where
GDP GROWTH - Annual variation rates, in % GDP grew 4.7%, also benefiting from rising oil
Chart 1.2 prices. Finally, the block of Latin America and

the Caribbean, with GDP growth of 6.9% in
2021, has managed to fully reverse the steep
fall in GDP recorded in 2020 (-6.9%).

In 2020, the pandemic had less impact on the
US economy than on the EMU (-3.4% compared
with -6.4%) because fewer restrictions were
applied there to contain the spread of the virus
and more economic aid was approved there. In
USA Eurozone 2021, the US economy also recovered faster,
with growth of 5.7% (four tenths more than
f: IMF forecasts (July 2022).
in the Eurozone), mainly through very strong
Source: IMF.
growth in private consumption (7.9%). This