Economy

Matovic: GDP Data for 2Q20 Surprising for Everyone But Us

Bratislava, August 14 (TASR) – Data on the gross domestic product (GDP) in Slovakia in the second quarter of 2020 were surprising perhaps for everyone, except for the governing coalition, said Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) at a press conference on Friday.

Matovic said that the government achieved its goal to protect businesses and employees from economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Slovakia’s GDP slumped by 12.1 percent year-on-year in 2Q20, a figure praised by Matovic as less catastrophic than expected by many experts. According to the prime minister, this was chiefly due to the fact that Slovakia did well in terms of health. “No company was in quarantine, when foreign demand emerged,” said Matovic, calling Slovakia the “prize winner” in Europe in terms of containing the spread of coronavirus.

While Slovakia was economically the fourth-most affected EU-member country in the first quarter of 2020, it was “somewhere in the middle” in the second quarter, said Matovic. Nevertheless, not all countries have already produced data for 2Q20.

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