Coronavirus: world faces ‘similar economic shocks’ to China as global lockdowns escalate
- Western governments urged to view China’s ‘terrible numbers’ as incentive to be more decisive in tackling coronavirus economic fallout
- Policymakers face delicate balancing act of managing health risks and keeping economies afloat, amid unprecedented pandemic challenge
A series of grim economic numbers from China have given the world a glimpse of what might lie ahead, as countries embark on draconian coronavirus containment measures.
And while the slump was quite well telegraphed in advance surveys, such as the purchasing managers’ indices, the numbers were still much worse than the average forecast.
The data came on the same day that coronavirus deaths outside China surpassed those inside, and as American efforts to arrest the economic impact by slashing interest rates to zero fell flat, with markets continuing to plunge around the globe.
For the rest of the world, similar economic shocks seem inevitable as virus control measures are escalated
“For the rest of the world, similar economic shocks seem inevitable as virus control measures are escalated,” said Chaoping Zhu, a Shanghai-based global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management.