The slump in energy commodities and copper shows the fragility of the global economy and the risks to the consensus’s reflation trade. It is easy to blame the recent fall of commodity prices on the coronavirus outbreak, but the weakness was already evident before the outbreak.
This epidemic cannot be detached from an event that has not grabbed many headlines last year. The retail price of pork rose last year by more than 80 percent. Food price inflation—despite an official low headline consumer price index (CPI) of 3 percent—and a shortage in the supply of meat and pork generated a rapid increase in consumption of wild animals, including bats and snakes, which led to a rapid deterioration in health controls and a large exposure to diseases like the coronavirus. This is one of the reasons why the death toll and affected headcount are rising so fast. Not only is coronavirus more contagious than previous similar viruses, but the risk is extended to various provinces.
We all hope that the outbreak will be contained quickly, but we also need to make some estimates of economic risk. According to a study by Jong-Wha Lee and Warwick J. McKibbin, the impact on the global economy from the earlier SARS coronavirus epidemic was up to $45 billion. But once the WHO introduced decisive measures and the epidemic was contained, both the stock market and the global economy resumed an upward trend. However, in 2003 China only made up 4 percent of the global GDP, and now it is around 17 percent. The level of trade with China was also much smaller. Nomura expects a 2 percent slump in China’s annualized GDP growth in one quarter, which could cause ripple effects in Japan, with an impact of up to 0.4 percent, and Hong Kong, up to 1.7 percent.
China’s top trading partners are likely to suffer. The United States has a massive trade deficit, but remains, at 19 percent, China’s largest trading partner. Outside of the US, Hong Kong (12.1 percent), should be the most affected, followed by Japan (5.9 percent), South Korea (4.4 percent), Vietnam (3.4 percent), Germany (3.1 percent), India (3.1 percent) and the Netherlands (2.9 percent): $73.1 billion.
China has closed all commercial activities in at least twenty-one provinces, municipalities, and regions and authorities have told businesses not to resume work until Feb. 10 at the earliest. Last year, those parts of China accounted for more than 80 percent of national GDP, and 90 percent of exports, so the impact on the domestic and global economy cannot be underestimated.
Emerging markets face a double risk. On the one side, collapsing commodity prices and weaker trade growth are likely to have an important impact on exports and growth. However, the other important risk comes from weakening reserves as foreign currency revenues fall, precisely in a year when USD-denominated maturities exceed $1 trillion.
The eurozone is not immune. Its massive trade surplus also relies heavily on markets where China is either the main partner or a key driver of growth and trade.
So far, most of these risks are only assumptions and many come from speculation, because the extent of the outbreak has not been defined in detail. As such, it is logical that markets and economists see a wide range of impacts. One thing, however, is clear: the estimates of global GDP, inflation, and trade growth for 2020 that we saw at the end of last year are going to be slashed, and the likelihood of full normalization of trade and commercial activity in and with China in the short term is small. We all want a rapid resolution, effective containment of the epidemic, and no more deaths, but the economic ramifications cannot be ignored
Originally published at Dlacalle.com