The Strategist

IMF: Global GDP will lose 0.1 pp of growth due to coronavirus



02/24/2020 - 03:57



The situation with the spread of coronavirus will cost the global GDP about 0.1 percentage points of growth, if events develop according to the baseline scenario. China will lose about 0.4 percentage points of GDP compared with the forecast of the fund in January, said Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva.



SISTEMA 12 via flickr
SISTEMA 12 via flickr
"In our current baseline scenario... the Chinese economy will return to normal in the second quarter. As a result, the impact on the global economy will be relatively small and short-lived," the IMF press service quoted Georgieva as saying.

"Under this scenario, 2020 growth will amount to 5.6% for China. This is 0.4 percentage points lower than in the IMF forecast in January. Global growth will be about 0.1 percentage points lower," Head of the IMF said.

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization about an outbreak of unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan in the central part of the country (Hubei Province). Experts have identified the causative agent of the disease: this was a new coronavirus. WHO recognized the outbreak as an emergency of international importance and gave the disease its official name, COVID-2019.

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in mainland China exceeded 76 thousand people, 2345 of them died, more than 20.6 thousand people were cured and discharged from hospitals. Outside of China, according to WHO on Friday, 1,200 infections were recorded in 26 countries.

source: imf.org