Moody's named the economies with the greatest losses from the pandemic

The main consequences of the pandemic for national economies will be the debt burden, social tension and poverty, Moody's predicts. Countries that are heavily dependent on individual sectors will have the hardest time.

The international rating agency Moody's Investors Service has released a report assessing the losses of national economies due to the covid-19 pandemic (the document is at the disposal of RBC). Long-term negative consequences are predicted by analysts for most countries of the world, but some of them will be able to get out of the crisis with minimal damage.

The pace of recovery and “scarring” after the pandemic will depend on the structure of the national economy, the ability of product and labor markets to adapt to the effects of a pandemic shock, as well as the quality of government anti-COVID policies and the pace of mass vaccination in countries, Moody's points out.

Three groups of countries

The agency's analysts divided the countries into three groups depending on the gap between Moody's pre-pandemic forecast for real GDP in 2020-2023 and the current forecast for their GDP for the same years.

The least affected economies are those with projected GDP only 2% (or less) below the pre-crisis forecast. Economies with medium damage - their forecast GDP falls short of 2-8% to the pre-crisis level. The hardest-hit economies are expected to lose more than 8% relative to the pre-pandemic GDP trajectory.