Nordea vurderer, at den økonomiske virkning af corona-virusen bliver hård, ikke kun for Kina, men at virkningen bliver kortvarig, og at økonomien hurtigt retter sig igen. Sådan var det under og efter Sars, og sådan reagerede de asiatiske lande efter Asien-krisen i 1997.
Uddrag fra Nordea:
The impact of corona is severe but most likely temporary
In the first quarter, China’s economic growth will be hit hard by the coronavirus. What we know at the moment is that the holiday period is extended by a few days until 2nd February in the whole country.
On top of that, a significant part of the Chinese economy (at least a significant part of activity in Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Jiangsu) will be partly closed one more week until 9th February and the worst hit Hubei province is expected to return to a normal life not before 13th February. The above-listed provinces account for about a third of China’s total economy and a significant drop in economic activity for one week in these provinces can substantially cut activity at the national level. A rough estimate for solely that impact could be at least 1%-pt less growth in the first quarter of 2020.
Furthermore, we expect economy to be seriously hit mainly via the confidence impact for many more weeks and in the whole region. The most severe effects could be seen in the transport sector (sector’s share is 4% of GDP) and tourism industry more generally (the share of hotels and catering is 2% of China’s GDP). But we also expect potentially severe impacts in manufacturing supply chains and practically all over the Chinese economy.
In sum, the growth rate in the first quarter of 2020 should be very much affected and strongly in negative territory in q/q terms (our prior to Corona made forecast for quarterly growth in Q1 2020 is 1.5%). However, when estimating the impact on the economic activity, one of the key variables is the length of the unfortunate episode.
After the sars in 2003 but also after many terrible terrorist attacks, the economies have started to recover surprisingly fast. By looking at for example the GDP data from China’s closest trade partners in 2003, we notice that already the subsequent quarter made up most of the losses caused by the epidemic. Thus, the permanent output losses have turned out to be miniscule and the same pattern can be found also after most terrorist attacks.
Thus, at this stage, our assumption is that the recovery from the coronavirus will also be fast, whenever that starts, but given that there is an extremely high amount of uncertainty related to the nature of the virus and what we can expect from the epidemic as well as China’s measures to boost growth again, it is too early to conclude about the exact size of economic impact.
