G7 finance officials pledge all possible steps to beat coronavirus

TOKYO (REUTERS) - Group of Seven finance officials said on Tuesday (March 3) they would take all possible steps to safeguard the global economy from the spreading coronavirus outbreak, with Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda promising a "good message".

On a conference call, the group of rich nations' finance ministers and central bank governors pledged actions, including fiscal measures where appropriate, to support the global economy, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said.

He said the desirable policy response would vary from country to country. The global policymakers' united front offset anxiety over the coronavirus' rapid spread in dozens of countries and aided a recovery in world stocks and oil prices.

"This is a tug of war between hope and fear. Central banks are giving hopes with their potential stimulus," said Mr Vasu Menon, senior investment strategist at OCBC Bank Wealth Management. "The question is what they will do? Monetary policy is already very loose and interest rates are very low."

Global stocks suffered a rout last week on fears that the disruption to supply chains, factory output and global travel caused by the epidemic could deal a serious blow to a world economy trying to recover from the US-China trade war.

The coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has spread fast around the world over the past week, with more new cases now appearing outside China than within.

There are more than 90,000 cases globally, with more than 80,000 of them in China, and infections appearing in 77 other countries and territories, with Ukraine the latest country to report its first case. China's death toll is 2,943 with more than 75 deaths elsewhere.

New cases in China have been falling sharply, with 125 reported on Tuesday, thanks to its aggressive containment measures. After what critics said was an initially hesitant response to the virus, China imposed sweeping restrictions, including suspensions of transport, sealing off communities, and extending a Chinese New Year holiday across the country.

Now China is increasingly concerned about the virus being brought back into the country by citizens returning from new hot spots elsewhere.

The authorities on Tuesday asked overseas Chinese to reconsider or minimise their plans to travel home. All travellers entering Beijing from South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy would have to be quarantined for 14 days, a city official said.

Shanghai has introduced a similar order. The most serious outbreak outside China is in South Korea, where President Moon Jae-in declared war on the virus, ordering additional hospital beds and more masks as cases rose by 600 to nearly 5,000.

Thirty-four people have died in South Korea. In the United States, the virus is now believed to be present in at least four communities in the Pacific North-west - two in northern California, one in Oregon and one in Washington state - and the authorities there are having to go well beyond the quarantine of infected travellers and tracing of close contacts, which until now had been the response. Six people have died in the Seattle outbreak.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention lists more than 90 cases across the US, a large bulk of them patients repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise liner that had been quarantined in Japan.

Iran reported infections rising to 1,501, with 66 deaths, including a senior official.

The death toll in Italy jumped to 52 on Monday from 34 the day before and the total number of confirmed cases in Europe's worst-affected country climbed past the 2,000 mark.

Germany reported 31 new infections, taking its tally to 188.