Santiago, Dec 17 (IANS): Latin America and the Caribbean region will witness an economic growth in 2021, but not enough to match the pre-pandemic levels, a UN agency has warned.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said on Wednesday that the regional economy will plunge 7.7 per cent in 2020, then see a positive growth rate of 3.7 per cent in 2021, which is "insufficient for recovering the economic activity levels seen prior to the coronavirus pandemic", reports Xinhua news agency.

ECLAC released its "Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2020", one of its flagship annual reports, during a virtual press conference presided by the agency's Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the region in the developing world hardest impacted by the pandemic, following a decade of low-growth, said the report.

"The process of recovering pre-crisis levels of gross domestic product (GDP) will be slow and will not conclude until 2024," it added.

Barcena recommended, among other things, that the region make "a productive transformation towards environmentally sustainable sectors, which would favour job creation and technological innovation".

However, national efforts alone will not be enough.

"The region's economic reactivation and transformation will require financing and international cooperation," the report said.