Australian State Economy to Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels by 2024: Report A new report commissioned by the City of Melbourne shows Melbourne’s CBD economy will take four years to return to pre-pandemic levels. But the analysis (pdf) by Deloitte Access Economics completed in May 2021, did not account for Melbourne’s fourth lockdown in June 2021 or subsequent lockdowns across the country. This comes amid economic forecasts that Sydney’s lockdown will have a greater impact on the national economy than Melbourne as Sydney enters its third week of lockdown. The Deloitte report found that Victoria has so far been hardest hit by the pandemic among all Australian states and territories—with the CBD’s Gross Regional Product (GRP) alone decreasing by 53 percent from $74 billion to $35.4 billion in 2020.