GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT OF KERALA- A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON KERALA ECONOMY

Abstract

Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), originated at Wuhan, China, has spread to more than 158 countries of the world infecting more than 47 crores of the population as per World Health Organisation data. Since most of the countries had their primary infection through people from pandemic areas, many countries have stopped flight operations and closed their borders. Moreover the pandemic brought trade and business of the affected countries into halt and they also restricted the movement of people in all respects. The flight cancellations caused huge loss to the airline industry. Likewise, many sectors of the society were affected with the prolonged country-wide lockdown, global economic downturn and associated disruption of demand and supply chains. Apart from being a global health concern, COVID-19 is having major consequences on the world economy, and experts have predicted that COVID- 19 will lower global gross domestic product growth by one-half a percentage point for 2020. Furthermore, the economy is likely to face a protracted period of slowdown. The Indian economy also witnessed an unprecedented shock due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The economic impact is determined by the length of the lockdown and how the situation unfolds after it is lifted. It is important to have a coherent interference of the global researchers to understand and limit the economic fallout. In this context, this study aims to discuss the potential impacts of the pandemic over economy of Kerala, by assessing the GDP data for the last 10 years from 2011to 2020.