RTWed, 08 Apr 2020 17:03 UTC
© Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
The coronavirus pandemic is likely to spark an unprecedented fall in global trade as well as an economic crisis rivaling the Great Depression, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has warned.
"We confront what may well be the deepest economic downturn of our lifetimes," the organization's Director General Roberto Azevedo
said in a grim forecast. "Comparisons with the financial crisis of 2008 and even the Great Depression of the 1930s are inevitable."
The international trade regulator has
estimated that the global goods trade volume could shrink by 13 percent this year because of the pandemic even in the best-case scenario. Should governments around the world fail to bring the deadly virus under control any time soon,
the world will stand to lose about a third of its total trade volume this year or even more.
International trade is already seeing what Azevedo described as
"enormous" shocks in supply and demand caused by governments' decision to limit trans-border movements and restrict economic activities in line with quarantine measures.
In light of the current "social distancing" practices, the
WTO chief warned the nations against a "turn towards protectionism," arguing it would only add to the economic suffering they are already enduring. "Keeping markets open to international trade and investment would help economies recover more quickly," he said, calling on governments to bring the pandemic under control as soon as possible.
On the bright side, the WTO chief also said that
economic recovery could be quite fast "regardless of how steep the initial fall is" — but only if right policies are in place. The pandemic has already taken a bite out of some of the world's leading economies. For example, France has reported that the country faces its worst economic crisis since 1945.
Comment: 'Coronavirus hoax' is an example of how to hit, at minimum, four essentials to the wellbeing of mankind: Health, Money, Community and Freedom - by injecting Fear, Scarcity, Isolationism and Police State in one blow.
France extends lockdown:
Coronavirus lockdown measures in France, already in place for more than three weeks, will be extended further, President Emmanuel Macron's office said. The country has filed over 110,000 confirmed cases and 10,800 deaths.
The lockdown will be extended beyond the current deadline of April 15, the French presidential palace announced on Wednesday. The timeframe for the extension was not immediately clear and is likely to be announced by Macron, who will address the nation on the epidemic situation Monday.
Earlier in the day, France's Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the lockdown measures have proven effective, but added that "the time to unwind the lockdown has not come. The [Covid-19] expansion is slowing so much that we might soon reach a flattening of the curve ... and that's most certainly due to the lockdown's effect."
France's coronavirus outbreak does appear to be entering a positive trend. On Wednesday, the number of people who died from Covid-19 in French hospitals grew 'only' by 8 percent.
Still, the figure might be incomplete as the authorities failed to secure data from nursing homes due to "technical problems." People who died in such institutions account for more than 30 percent of the nation's almost 11,000 fatalities.
While the lockdown measures apparently helped to slow down the spread of the disease, the battle against the outbreak has already sent France into a worst-in-decades recession. The French economy shrank around 6 percent in the first quarter of this year, showing its worst performance since 1945.
Despite the downturn, the country's financial system remains "solid," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said earlier in the day, and one should not be too concerned about its stability.
Comment: 'Coronavirus hoax' is an example of how to hit, at minimum, four essentials to the wellbeing of mankind: Health, Money, Community and Freedom - by injecting Fear, Scarcity, Isolationism and Police State in one blow.
France extends lockdown: