The 10 countries with more than 90% of all coronavirus infections to date have contributed well above 50% to the world’s GDP, putting the world at risk of entering a recession, a leading SA economist told a virtual conference for financial advisers this week.
Lings said in his presentation that the key will be to see how quickly Europe and the US, which was initially slow to react, can get the virus under control.lready, numbers coming out of China, the world’s second-largest economy, are not looking good and the Asian giant’s first quarter GDP will be negative.
n the absence of a vaccine, all countries can do is lock down, but isolating people and banning travel effectively pushes economies into a recession. Monetary authorities are responding with fiscal stimulus packages — interest-rate cuts and quantitative easing in the US in an attempt to cushion the negative effects of the virus.
In February’s budget, the shortfall in government revenue, now for the seventh year, was set at R63bn. While Lings had dire warnings about global economic growth, fund managers at the conference spoke calmly about the opportunities that were arising as a result of the sell-off.
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