People work in a workshop of Harbin Boiler Company Limited in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Feb. 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)
JP Morgan noted that the novel coronavirus is only "a source of short-term volatility," so it will not prevent stocks from making "new highs in 2020."
by George Georgakopoulos
ATHENS, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- The impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic on the global economy and trade will be temporary, experts have said in recent interviews with Xinhua.
They said Chinese authorities' timely tackling of the epidemic has both alleviated health concerns and reduced financial repercussions.
The virus will "have an immediate, though more likely temporary, impact on the Chinese economy, especially on production and consumption," Rohini Malkani, an economist at DBRS Morningstar, a global rating agency in Toronto, told Xinhua via email.
"Looking at the year as a whole… a rebound in demand will lessen the overall economic cost of the virus," she said.
Technicians work at a workshop of a company in Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province, Feb. 14, 2020. Companies in Nanchang have adopted various measures to assist their staff to resume work safely and efficiently amid the COVID-19 outbreak. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)
U.S. investment banking company JP Morgan also said in an email to Xinhua that it expects a global and regional slowdown in the first quarter (Q1), but a recovery in Q2 and Q3, anticipating a swift easing of economic disruption soon.
On the financial field, JP Morgan noted that the novel coronavirus is only "a source of short-term volatility," so it will not prevent stocks from making "new highs in 2020."
"The virus has failed to generate material and sustained drawdown in global markets, considering that this public health crisis is hardly the most lethal in the past 20 years," said the company.
Antonis Zairis, a Greek professor of economics at the Neapolis University in Cyprus, estimated that "the overall impact on the eurozone economy will be minimal."
"I expect the impact to come to no more than 0.01 percent of the eurozone's gross domestic product this year," Zairis told Xinhua recently.
File photo shows tourists visit the Stoa of Attalos in the archaeological site of the Ancient Agora in Athens, Greece, on June 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)
In terms of the impact on Greece, experts said that it mainly lies in the tourism and real estate sectors in particular.
"Visitors from China are a small share of overall tourist numbers (in Greece), but the number is growing rapidly and Chinese tourists have a relatively high spending," said Malkani.
Zairis said that the European country's property sector is likely to feel the pinch of the coronavirus outbreak as well.
"We can expect an impact on the Greek real estate market from the likely slowdown of Chinese participating the program offering residence permits to non-European Union citizens who invest in local property," he said. ■
