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| - Colombia's economy took a major hit from the coronavirus epidemic, shrinking by a near-50-year record margin in 2020, official data showed Monday. GDP registered a drop of 6.8 percent, "the biggest since 1975," according to Juan Daniel Oviedo, head of the DANE statistics department. In 2019, the economy grew 3.3 percent. In the second quarter of 2020, Colombia registered "the biggest (quarterly) contraction in contemporary history," Oviedo told reporters. After detecting its first coronavirus case last March, the country was under lockdown for six months until September in a bid to curb coronavirus spread, a measure that saw many businesses closed, some of them for good. Trade, construction and mining all showed major declines, according to the data. Of more the 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Colombia was among the hardest-hit economically by the global health crisis, along with Britain, Italy and Mexico, said Oviedo. However, it's downturn was less extensive than projected by the central bank and International Monetary Fund. Colombia's urban unemployment figure stood at 18.2 percent in 2020, while 48 percent of the economically-active population were self-employed. The country has registered nearly 2.2 million coronavirus infections and more than 57,000 deaths, and like many countries is counting on vaccination to allow it to return to business as usual. The country received its first batch of 50,000 vaccines Monday for its inoculation campaign, scheduled to start next week. dl/mlr/bgs
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