BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd May, 2021) The crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic cost the German economy 300 billion Euros ($365.4 billion), the head of the German Economic Institute (IW), Michael Huther, says.
Huther told the German Die Welt daily that a large portion of the losses is due to the renewed lockdown that was introduced amid the second wave of COVID-19.
"It will take years before the losses and structural distortions are balanced out," Huther said, adding that "we must not succumb to the illusion that the crisis will no longer leave its mark. Without Corona the economy would have grown significantly."
In March, the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research decreased Germany's GDP growth forecast for 2021 from 4.2 to 3.7 percent, citing high coronavirus infection rates.
