Director’s Remarks, August 2020 NIER

"The Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of the measures taken to protect lives continue to dominate the short term global economic outlook. And in the main this is because lockdowns have been the economic tool by which we have chosen to control the virus. World growth has not only stalled this year but has moved significantly into reverse and will take activity back to its 2018 level. Year on year growth in world income for three decades has hovered in the range 3 to 4%, and even in the worst year of the financial crisis barely crossed the zero line, yet we now expect output to contract by some 5% this year and that is probably one of the better case scenarios. In many countries, with the Euro Area a particular concern, even by 2022 or 2023 GDP will still be lower than at the level reached at end of 2019."