The economy of France is highly dependent on its considerable share in exporting goods and services. The country has witnessed significant growth in the manufacturing of food and beverage, machinery and equipment, as well as chemicals. These economic conditions are supported by the well defined monetary policy and the structural reforms in the country. France also has more than 18,000 companies in the manufacturing sector and more than 380,000 employees. Another key contributor to the country’s economy is the agrifood industry that alone generated the revenue of $170 billion in 2017. According to OECD countries, GDP growth rate of France for 2019-2020 is expected to remain near 1.3%. However, there was assessed the impact of global uncertainty and social conflict in 2018 on all these economic activities. Moreover, the outbreak of COVID-19 all over the globe has affected the France economy negatively leading to halt in these economic activities.
Considering the present scenario of the pandemic in the country, there are approximately 154,188 number of coronavirus infected cases as of 9th June 2020 with 29,209 number of fatalities as sourced by worldometer. However, there have been 71,062 registered cases as well as per the same source. France is facing a major recession in relation to the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic. It affected the country’s overall production capacity, with concerns about slowing global demand and availability of raw materials. As a result, the country’s manufacturing and other industries have temporarily ceased to operate, which otherwise are the major contributors to the domestic production of the country. In France, fears of business and employment have increased sharply since February. In France, economic uncertainty seems to have increased more rapidly than concerns about coronavirus risk levels.
Though a few industrial determinants including for the food & beverage, automobile, energy, electronic and electrical, aviation, BFSI, retail, e-commerce, travel and tourism, and others of the country are responsible for the nation’s growth, its energy sector, in particular marks a major setback due to corona’s outbreak. Further, the country’s COVID-19 epidemic is expected to reduce the nuclear demand. In addition, the occurrence of COVID-19 will delay the development of new wind farm projects that affect the deployment of wind farms that affect the country’s wind power generation. Thus, these factors are expected to restrain the economic growth of France, which after all, has affected the global economy as a whole.
