DUBAI • The coronavirus epidemic could damage global economic growth this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, but a sharp and rapid economic rebound could follow.
"There may be a cut that we are still hoping would be in the 0.1 to 0.2 percentage space," IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told the Global Women's Forum in Dubai on Sunday.
She said the full impact of the disease would depend on how quickly it was contained.
"I advise everybody not to jump to premature conclusions. There is still a great deal of uncertainty. We operate with scenarios, not yet with projections," Ms Georgieva said.
In its January update to the World Economic Outlook, the IMF lowered the global economic growth forecast for this year by a 0.1 percentage point to 3.3 per cent, following a 2.9 per cent growth the previous year, the lowest in a decade.
If the disease is "contained rapidly, there can be a sharp drop and a very rapid rebound", in what is known as the V-shaped impact, Ms Georgieva said.
Compared with the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, she said, China's economy then made up just 8 per cent of the global economy. Now, that figure is 19 per cent.
She welcomed the trade agreement signed last month by the United States and China, the world's first-and second-largest economies, respectively.
"About China, it has been slowing down naturally, transiting from what we can call high-speed to high-quality growth," she said.
"And, as a result of the reduction of trade tensions (after the agreement)... we actually have been predicting some improvement for 2020 in the projections for China."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
