Epidemic poses potential damage to Japan’s economy, which is heavily reliant on China.
“China’s economy is very important in the global economy now, and when China’s economy slows down we do feel that – not as much though as countries that are near China, or that trade more actively with China, like some of the Western European countries,” Powell said. Zhang Ming, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think tank, projected the outbreak would cut China’s first-quarter growth by one percentage point to 5% or lower.
Starbucks has closed more than half its cafes in China and Walt Disney shut its resorts and theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong. “We expect the risk of potential negative spillovers to domestic tourism in neighbouring countries to be higher than during SARS because Chinese nationals now make up the largest share of visitors to other Asia-Pacific economies,” Moody’s said on Wednesday.