COVID-19 costs Germany 330 bln euros in economic losses: ifo

Special: Battle Against Novel Coronavirus

Germany's economy suffered losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic of 330 billion euros (375.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020 and 2021, the ifo Institute said on Thursday.

This was equal to 10 percent of Germany's economic output in 2019, according to calculations by the ifo Institute. Future value-added losses, for example due to shortfalls in education, were not taken into account.

"This is the most severe global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s," said ifo president Clemens Fuest, stressing that "the German government was right to take decisive action to stabilize the economy."

According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 2.7 percent in 2021 compared with the previous year, but was still down 2.0 percent from the pre-COVID-19 crisis year 2019.

"We based our calculation on the ifo Institute's December 2019 economic forecast for 2020 and 2021," said ifo's head of economic research, Timo Wollmershaeuser.

Without the COVID-19 crisis, the German economy would have grown by 1.3 percent in each of these years, he said.

In late January, the government lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2022 to 3.6 percent. The country was going through a "difficult catch-up phase," Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck has said in the annual economic report. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars)