Take a last glimpse at a nightmare year for world economy

This handout photo taken and released on December 30, 2020 by Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information shows the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine being given to senior staff nurse Sarah Lim (R) as Singapore began its vaccination exercise with the first batch of healthcare workers at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

FOR THE global economy, 2020 is ending with a sense of hope for the future, partly built on the assumption that it can’t surely be that bad again.

Such optimism is also founded on the rollout of vaccines to control the coronavirus pandemic. That means a return to some semblance of business-as-usual in the course of 2021 is now less ambitious a prospect than it once was.