Covid-19: the health crisis caused South Africa's GDP to drop in 2020
A resident of Alexandra township is tested for Covid-19 in Johannesburg on April 29, 2020 (illustrative image).
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The health crisis hit South Africa's economy hard in 2020. According to the statistical agency StatSA, the country's GDP contracted by 7% compared to 2019, its first recession in twelve years. .
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The confinement imposed at the end of March 2020 in South Africa to curb the spread of Covid-19 was the strictest in the world.
Therefore, it has severely affected the country's economy.
Its GDP fell by more than half last spring due to the sharp decline in activities in sectors such as hotels, tourism, industry and commerce.
The economy then grew positively when the restrictive measures were relaxed;
13.5% in the third quarter and 1.5% in the fourth quarter.
But this rebound in GDP was not enough to offset the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.
A pandemic that has greatly affected the South African population.
The country officially has more than 1.5 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 50,000 deaths, nearly half of the deaths linked to the coronavirus in Africa.
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South Africa
Coronavirus