【英文】牛津经济研究院：新冠疫情对亚太地区的经济影响（23页）

Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus and its spread across China, then Asia  and the world, the global economy looked to be entering 2020 on a reasonably  solid footing. Business investment remained tepid against a backdrop of lingering  fears of the US-China trade war reigniting. But world trade and industrial output  looked to have bottomed out late in 2019, offering hope of a recovery into 2020.  Additionally, labour markets remained strong around the world, helping to deliver  real income gains for households, and supporting consumer-led growth. Our  forecast published in January 2020 was for the world economy to grow by 2.5%,  broadly the same rate as in 2019, but set to gradually accelerate through 2020.  1.2 EVOLUTION OF A PANDEMIC  But the relatively promising start to 2020 was soon undermined by the rapid  spread of COVID-19.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a major economic  impact through its disruption to supply chains, impact on financial market  confidence, and most significantly through the restrictions to movement that  governments around the world have had to erect to contain its spread.  The virus was first detected in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s central Hubei  province, and a key cross-China railway hub, with the Wuhan Centre for Disease  Control (CDC) identifying a cluster of pneumonia-type cases on 31 December.  On 8 January, a new coronavirus was identified as driving the now-growing  outbreak. By the end of January, the virus had spread to every province in China.  Also by the end of January, cases had been detected in 20 more countries,  principally in Asia. On 31 January, the World Health Organisation (WHO)  declared the virus a “global public health emergency”.