FIW Annual Report. Austrias Foreign Trade 2021

The year 2020 was marked by the outbreak and global spread of COVID-19. Although in the first two calendar months Europe was not directly affected to any great extent by the spread of the virus, European value chains were already suffering as a result of production and delivery stoppages in and from Asia – above all China. From mid-February, the pandemic spread across Europe and the USA. Politicians had to respond with public health measures that massively restricted freedom of movement and transport in particular, bringing large parts of economic life to a standstill. Economically, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an economic downturn on a scale not seen since the end of World War II. The OECD expects global gross domestic product (GDP) to decline by 4.3 percent compared to 2019, while WIFO's December forecast predicts a year-on-year decline in Austrian GDP of around 7.3 percent in 2020.