In 2020, global gross domestic product declined by 6.7 percent as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. In Latin America, overall GDP loss amounted to 8.5 percent.

For 2020, global retail sales were forecast to drop by over 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars when compared to pre-COVID-19 estimates. Asia was anticipated to see the largest losses, with retail sales values dropping by 1.23 trillion U.S. dollars in the region.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Tourism spending in Los Angeles in California was predicted to reach 12 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, when taking into account the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic - the figure includes spending on hotels, restaurants, and sight-seeing trips. This was less than half the size of the original 'pre-coronavirus' forecast, which was 25 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2020, the food service industry in the United States took a huge hit due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. According to the source, in 2020, the retail sales of the food service industry was forecasted to reach *** billion U.S. dollars (nominal dollars). This shows a *** billion U.S. dollars decline when compared to the previous year.

As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the global travel and tourism market has taken a huge hit across the globe. According to the source, in the United States there is predicted to be a drop in travel spending of *** billion U.S. dollars in 2020, which is a percentage decrease of ** percent.

According to McKinsey, global payment revenues after the coronavirus outbreak were expected to decrease by *** percent and amount to **** trillion U.S. dollars in a muted recovery scenario. On the contrary, pre-COVID-19 estimations for 2020 showed that global payments revenues were to reach **** trillion U.S. dollars.

The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had not only brought the global economy to a standstill but set the clock backwards on the developmental progress of several nations. While the rate of infection in India did not appear to be as high as in other countries, precautionary measures adopted dealt a severe blow to the country’s major industries - with the service sector bearing the largest brunt of estimated loss. Manufacturing made a swift recovery in the following months.

Impact of key industries

The loss incurred by enforcing a lockdown in the country was estimated at 26 billion U.S. dollars and a significant decline in GDP growth is also expected in the June quarter of 2020. With the imposition of restrictions on transportation worldwide, the trade sector also took a hit. Exports and imports saw a drastic decline in the country especially in the case of essential commodities such as petroleum, food crops, and coal, among others.

Effect on business in India

The growth rate of the automotive business in India was expected to be the most adversely affected followed by the power supply and IT sectors. Furthermore, many startups, small and medium enterprises in India expected to face issues of supply disruption and a decrease in demand. The effects of aid from the Narendra Modi-led government arguably did little to help in the face of a faltering economy.

On April 20th, 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil slumped into negative for the first time in history, falling to negative 37.63 U.S. dollars per barrel. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has had a catastrophic impact on the global oil and gas industry. Declining consumer demand and high levels of production output are threatening to exceed oil storage capacities, which resulted in the lowest ever oil prices noted between April 20th and April 22nd.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet has undergone significant changes since 2007, reflecting its response to major economic crises. From a modest *** trillion U.S. dollars at the end of 2007, it ballooned to approximately **** trillion U.S. dollars by October 29, 2025. This dramatic expansion, particularly during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic—both of which resulted in negative annual GDP growth in the U.S.—showcases the Fed's crucial role in stabilizing the economy through expansionary monetary policies. Impact on inflation and interest rates The Fed's expansionary measures, while aimed at stimulating economic growth, have had notable effects on inflation and interest rates. Following the quantitative easing in 2020, inflation in the United States reached ***** percent in 2022, the highest since 1991. However, by August 2025, inflation had declined to *** percent. Concurrently, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of interest rate hikes, with the rate peaking at **** percent in August 2023, before the first rate cut since September 2021 occurred in September 2024. Financial implications for the Federal Reserve The expansion of the Fed's balance sheet and subsequent interest rate hikes have had significant financial implications. In 2024, the Fed reported a negative net income of ***** billion U.S. dollars, a stark contrast to the ***** billion U.S. dollars profit in 2022. This unprecedented shift was primarily due to rapidly rising interest rates, which caused the Fed's interest expenses to soar to over *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Despite this, the Fed's net interest income on securities acquired through open market operations reached a record high of ****** billion U.S. dollars in the same year.

Given that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak intensifies, annual estimates for the aviation industry adjusted. As of April 2021, annual passenger revenue in the Asia Pacific region was forecasted to decline by approximately *** billion U.S. dollars from the previous year. COVID-19 and the global aviation Amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, countries and organizations began to implement precautionary measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 for a public purpose. Some of the preventive methods included imposing lockdowns or encouraging no travel unless necessary by governments. Similarly, businesses adopted a multitude of strategies to cope with the challenge, such as avoiding business travels or minimizing them. When aggregated, these measures by the governments and businesses affected the aviation industry adversely. Starting from February 2020, the year-on-year revenue-passenger kilometer (RPK) change on international routes continued to decline, reaching roughly ** percent of decline by April 2020. This decline implies an almost complete cancellation of air travel across the globe. Just like previous months, the enormous negative effect of COVID-19 on passenger aviation continues to persist as of September 2020. Consequently, airlines were desperately urged to request government aid. For instance, Lufthansa Group received over ** billion U.S. dollars and Air France – KLM roughly **** billion U.S. dollars in government bailout package. Despite all, the vulnerability of airlines perseveres as the coronavirus pandemic exposes the globe to the second wave of infections across countries. Financial performance of airlines amid COVID-19 Due to the nature of business activity involved, airline groups usually hold fewer liquidity accounts in their asset portfolios. This tendency is especially the case for traditional airlines, although somewhat less true for low-cost carriers (LCCs). While analyzing the 2019 financial balance sheet data of European airlines, Lufthansa Group held only ** percent of its global revenue in liquid assets, such as cash. Similarly, Air France-KLM around ** percent of its revenue in liquid accounts. On the other hand, Wizz Air and Ryanair demonstrated the best liquidity accounts amongst all European airline groups, with over ** percent of 2019 total revenue as liquid assets. The importance of liquid assets emerges when a business is in unexpected need to finance itself but does not have access to immediate finance capacities. For instance, a company with high illiquid asset portfolio firstly needs to liquidate its illiquid assets and then only be able to meet due business obligations. According to another analysis, Pakistan International and Precision Air have a high risk of collapse as of November 2020.

During a June 2021 survey, around ** percent of adults with an annual income of more than 100,000 U.S. dollars said that their wages remained the same during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, approximately ** percent of respondents with an income of under ****** a year said that they experienced a decrease in wages during the pandemic.

In 2022, the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine market in Indonesia generated an annual revenue of around *** million U.S. dollars, indicating a sharp decline compared to the previous year. The Statista Health Market Outlook estimated the revenue of the market would continue to decrease and reach around *** million U.S. dollars by 2028.

Currently, China manufactures about ** percent of intermediate products traded in the global supply chain and Chinese products represent a critical part of the global value chain of the electrical machinery sector. For this reason, the disruption caused by COVID-19 in China alone is expected to reverberate on the economy of many other countries worldwide. In the European Union, the electrical machinery industry is expected to lose about *** billion U.S. dollars from a two percent reduction in China exports of intermediate inputs. The European chemical and automotive sector are also expected to suffer similar impacts.

China's role in the global economy Since the beginning of the 1990s, China started to open up its markets with attractive incentives to foreign investors. Three decades later, the country has become the second-largest economy in the world with the highest absolute catch-up effect observed during this time span. For instance, between 2003 and 2019, China's semiconductor consumption market share increased at a high pace, reaching ** percent in 2019. Besides, the export value of machine tools from China reached roughly **** billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up from *** billion U.S. dollars in 2009. With solid economic strategies, the country could quickly reduce the wealth gap with the developed countries. At the moment, the country is highly specialized in various industries and continues its progress to strengthen its international export position. China’s exports of high-tech goods represented ** percent of its total exports in 2018.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Chinese economy For the first time since the *****, the Chinese real gross domestic product (GDP) experienced a negative growth rate in the first quarter of 2020 because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. The economy is expected to grow only by *** percent in 2020. Yet over the past few years, the average annual real GDP growth rate in China was around ***** percent. To take a closer look at how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Chinese economy, a multidimensional approach is necessary since the country has a vastly diversified economic activity. For instance, between January and February 2020, the total industrial production in China declined by **** percent compared to the previous year. But Chinese industrial production started to recover quickly. By April 2020, the total industrial production in China reached a positive year-on-year change, roughly *** percent. Although the country experienced a large economic shock caused by the coronavirus outbreak, it started to recover quickly thanks to strong economic policy responses. By the fourth quarter of 2020, the Chinese business and government purchases of technology goods and services are expected to grow by about ***** percent.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the global mining industry. The budget for copper exploration for 2020 was projected (as of the first quarter of 2020) to be some *** million U.S. dollars lower than in 2019. Overall, mining exploration spending was estimated at **** billion U.S. dollars for 2020, down from **** billion U.S. dollars in 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove a global drop in prices for several commodity minerals. Between March and April 2020, the average price of copper decreased from ****** U.S. dollars per pound to ****** U.S. dollars per pound. This represented a drop of around ** percent in the global price of copper during that timeframe.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the tourism industry hard in 2020, with emergency measures adopted by many governments massively disrupting international travel. As a result, it was estimated that the United States recorded a tourism revenue loss of roughly *** billion U.S. dollars between January and October 2020. Meanwhile, Spain reported the second-highest drop in tourism revenue, losing about **** billion U.S. dollars over the period considered.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused the hotel industry across the globe to take huge a hit. Key performance indicators of the hotel industry in the United states were predicted reflect a drop in performance across the board in 2020 and 2021 when compared to pre-pandemic levels. In 2021, U.S. hotels were forecasted to have an occupancy of **** percent compared to **** percent in 2019. Meanwhile, ADR was expected to reach ****** U.S. dollars, a drop from the 2019 figure of ****** U.S. dollars. Lastly, RevPAR in 2021, was predicted to fall to ***** U.S. dollars, compared to ****** ***** U.S. dollars.

In 2020, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Central and South America had suffered a contraction of more than 110 billion U.S. dollars due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism. Meanwhile, the global travel restrictions imposed due to the health crisis caused a GDP decline of roughly 33 billion U.S. dollars in the Caribbean. In consequence, tourism employment was also severely affected in those regions that year.

Tourism contribution to GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean

The gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of all goods and services produced in a country or a region within a certain period. Excluding Mexico, the total contribution of the tourism sector to Latin America and the Caribbean’s GDP saw a moderate but overall positive trend during the past decade, surpassing 350 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. In Mexico alone, nearly two trillion Mexican pesos (more than 100 billion U.S. dollars at exchange rates of December 31, 2019) were added that year to the country’s GDP by tourism-related activities.

COVID-19 impact on travel and tourism in Mexico

Mexico is not only the leading country for tourism in Latin America but also one of the key players in the travel sector worldwide. For most of 2020, the Mexican government opted out of travel restrictions and lockdowns. This measure, however, did not rescue the country's tourism sector from the harsh impact of COVID-19. As of October of that year, Mexico was among the travel destinations most affected by the pandemic, with tourism revenue losses amounting to nearly 14 billion U.S. dollars.

In September 2025, prices had increased by three percent compared to September 2024, according to the 12-month percentage change in the consumer price index — the monthly inflation rate for goods and services in the United States. The data represents U.S. city averages. In economics, the inflation rate is a measure of the change in price level over time. The rate of decrease in the purchasing power of money is approximately equal. A projection of the annual U.S. inflation rate can be accessed here and the actual annual inflation rate since 1990 can be accessed here. InflationOne of the most important economic indicators is the development of the Consumer Price Index in a country. The change in this price level of goods and services is defined as the rate of inflation. The inflationary situation in the United States had been relatively severe in 2022 due to global events relating to COVID-19, supply chain restraints, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. More information on U.S. inflation may be found on our dedicated topic page. The annual inflation rate in the United States has increased from 3.2 percent in 2011 to 8.3 percent in 2022. This means that the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has weakened in recent years. The purchasing power is the extent to which a person has available funds to make purchases. According to the data published by the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) was about 258.84 in 2020 and is forecasted to grow up to 325.6 by 2027, compared to the base period from 1982 to 1984. The monthly percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for urban consumers in the United States was 0.1 percent in March 2023 compared to the previous month. In 2022, countries all around the world are experienced high levels of inflation. Although Brazil already had an inflation rate of 8.3 percent in 2021, compared to the previous year, while the inflation rate in China stood at 0.85 percent.

As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the global travel and tourism market is predicted to take a hit. According to the source, international tourism receipts are predicted to drop between ** to ** percent in 2020 when compared to 2019's figure of ***** billion U.S. dollars. This means that international tourism receipts are forecast to drop to between ***** and ***** billion U.S. dollars in 2020 due to the coronavirus.