Joanne Oakley
SPAIN and Italy’s economies will be affected more than countries in northern Europe from the coronavirus crisis.
Analysts predict a drop of around 10% this year for Spain, due to the collapse in tourism and various other key sectors of the economy.
Italy meanwhile, will see a drop of up to 12%, according to various financial predictions.
In contrast, Germany’s industrial output should prevent the drop going above 9% and France at around 7.5%.
Incredibly, the GDP of China may only fall by 3% according to Goldman Sachs, while Fitch Ratings predicts only 4% for the Asian giant.
Forecasts range from a contraction of around 7% in Spain by France’s Societe Generale to 9.7% from Goldman Sachs.
The Goldman Sachs team of analysts believes Italy will contract by 11.6%, Germany by 8.9% and France 7.4%.
Spain is particularly affected due to its huge importance of tourism which is around 12% of its GDP and with over 80m tourists normally arriving per year.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the tourism sector needs on average about 19.4 months to recover from epidemics.
Once the lockdown is over and life begins to resume to normality, tourist numbers will still be far lower due to the fear of travelling and catching planes or leaving the country.
Experts say Britain is also ‘heading for a recession of the scale we have not seen in modern history’ with JP Morgan predicting an 8% contraction in the second quarter of 2020 alone.
The G20 group is due to convene to discuss an ‘action plan’ in order to respond to the outbreak and the foreseen global market downturn.
