The fragile global economic recovery faces new obstacles, as a surge in new coronavirus infections may keep businesses closed and consumers nervous.
According to data from the World Health Organization, On June 21, the number of new coronavirus infection cases hit a record in a single day. The epidemic is on the rise across the United States, and new epidemics have also emerged in Germany and Australia. While China says the epidemic in Beijing is under control, cases are still rising rapidly in large emerging economies including Brazil, India and Indonesia. There are clusters of infections in Germany, Spain, Morocco and other countries, and two counties in Germany have returned to “lockdown” due to the epidemic in meat processing plants; the epidemic has rebounded in many states in the United States, adding variables to the restart plan; Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, France, has been diagnosed; South Africa will begin Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. The cumulative number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide has exceeded 9.44 million, and the cumulative number of deaths has exceeded 482,000.
“The battle is far from over,” said Tuuli McCully, head of Asia Pacific economics at Scotiabank in Singapore. “A severe second round of the epidemic in developed economies poses a major risk to the global economy, which has just begun to recover.”
High-frequency data tracked by Bloomberg Economics showed that conditions in the transportation and restaurant industries improved as lockdown measures were eased. A continued increase in cases could jeopardize or even reverse this trend.
There are uncertainties in the global economy, and the trade war between the United States and Europe has begun again
According to Bloomberg News, the United States is Consider imposing new tariffs on $3.1 billion worth of exports from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. There are early signs of the trade war launched by the United States against Europe. U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has warned that the United States may impose additional tariffs on European countries if they advance plans to impose “digital taxes.”
According to Bloomberg, the United States is imposing new tariffs on $3.1 billion in exports from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom as part of the Trump administration’s measures to deal with European countries. . According to reports, the U.S. Trade Representative wants to impose new tariffs on European exports such as olives, beer, gin and trucks, while increasing tariffs on products such as aircraft, cheese and yogurt.
The European Union has also made big moves. Bloomberg reported that the European Union has asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to approve additional tariffs on US$11.2 billion worth of US goods, which will hit US agriculture and fisheries.
Also, the European Union is considering a ban on U.S. travelers as the number of coronavirus cases increases in the United States. EU countries could ban travelers from the United States, Russia and Brazil, according to a draft list of travelers from acceptable countries obtained by The New York Times. Currently, the United States leads the world in terms of the total number of confirmed cases, while Brazil has the second largest number of confirmed cases.
Compared with whether the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe is turbulent, industry insiders are more worried about the impact of U.S.-European economic and trade frictions on the global economic and trade environment. According to this, some European trade policy observers said that after the Trump administration adopted a “tariff pressure” contact strategy against the EU on economic and trade issues for nearly one term, the EU has shown a certain degree of “immunity.” This stems not only from the particularity of the highly interdependent economic and trade relations between Europe and the United States, but also from the fact that the EU itself already has a considerable economic scale, which is a sign of confidence.
But for the global economy that has been affected by the epidemic this year and is in urgent need of recovery and restart, the continuous outbreak of economic and trade frictions between the United States and Europe is definitely not good news.
On the 24th, the IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook, comprehensively lowering its global economic growth forecast. The IMF predicts global GDP growth in 2020 to be -4.9%, previously expected to be -3%; U.S. GDP growth in 2020 is expected to be -8%, previously expected to be -5.9%; Eurozone GDP growth in 2020 is expected to be -10.2 %, previously expected to be -7.5%.
The IMF said that the downward revision of the global economic forecast for 2020 is due to the impact of the new coronavirus on consumption being greater than initially expected. If 2021 With the second wave of COVID-19 in 2020, the global economic growth rate for that year may be reduced to 0.5%.
The current recession is already the most severe since the Great Depression. Although the gradual lifting of lockdowns in parts of Europe and the United States has led some economists to envision a V-shaped recovery, a renewed acceleration in the growth of cases will threaten the recovery.
Torsten Slok, chief economist of Deutsche Bank, said: “The renewed outbreak of the epidemic has moved the V-shaped recovery towards a U-shaped recovery. The direction of the shift.”
Chief Economist of Citigroup and former Chief Economist of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Economist Catherine Mann said that improvement in consumer confidence will be the core of the recovery so that business investment and employment can resume. And the latest outbreak doesn’t help that outlook.
“The recovery is not satisfactory in any way, shape or form,” she told the Australian National University on Monday. Said at the university’s Crawford Leadership Forum.
<It is more than 3 yuan, but last year this price was still the price of gray cloth. With such low-priced fabrics, textile factory owners are no longer thinking about making money, but how to withdraw funds and reduce inventory.
“Half of the machines in our factory are currently in operation. We are also urging sales to take orders. As long as we don’t lose money, we will do it. It is mainly to support the workers and is afraid of the market going up. If there are no workers, it will be even more difficult.” said Mr. Shen, another textile boss.
Most textile people are still mentally prepared for the market situation in July. After all, according to historical conditions, if there is a big market in the weaving market, it usually occurs in March-April and September-October. There is generally less big market in July-August, that is, in the off-season, the market will originally have to face The pressure of accumulated inventory is just that this year’s inventory pressure is too huge. It may not have been encountered in the past six years. Therefore, textile people need to recognize their own position in troubled times and consciously limit inventory instead of blindly. Production, turn all funds into inventory, and avoid falling into a difficult situation under the pressure of competition! </p
