Could the Covid-19 shutdown have put China on course for a “secret recession”? asks Tom Rees in The Daily Telegraph. Freya Beamish of Pantheon Macroeconomics predicts an “unprecedented” 0.9% quarter-on-quarter GDP fall. GDP expanded by 6.1% last year, but there are persistent questions about the official figures. The true impact of this outbreak will “be a closely guarded state secret”.
“It is hard enough to understand China’s economy and its global ramifications at the best of times,” says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. Those banking on a stimulus-led rebound later this year must first wait for the outbreak to be contained. Meaningful fiscal stimulus is impossible so long as the spending channels are blocked by health curfews and factory closures.
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