section_path: Impact by region or country/Europe/Belgium
section_name: Belgium
paragraph_text: Belgium
  
  The Belgian economy exhibited low real GDP growth prior to the onset of the public health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. An already weakened economy, Belgium experienced a contraction of its real GDP during the first half of 2020 with a decline of 2.8% in the first quarter and an 11.4% contraction in the second quarter, suggesting a recession. After a trough in the second quarter, the economy bounced back and experience an 11.8% expansion of its real GDP (insert OECD GDP link using the reference button). That recovery was followed by a minor contraction of 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020 and a recovery the first quarter of 2021 with an economic expansion of about 2%. Despite the instability of Belgium’s GDP in 2020, the labor market showed resilience avoiding a more significant decline as observed in other countries at the time. The unemployment rate in Belgium remained relatively steady during the first quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter and it only increased by about a percentage point in April 2024 compared to the 5.2% unemployment in October 2019. The business cycle fluctuations of the Belgian economy did not bring significant changes to inflation rates which remained rather low since the end of 2019 and through 2020.