“No one can say how widely the Covid-19 pandemic may spread, and containment may take longer than currently projected,” said ADB’s chief economist Yasyuki Saswada at a 2020 Outlook briefing on April 3. “The possibility of severe financial turmoil and financial crisis cannot be discounted,” he adds, noting that the employment of some 68 million workers across Asia will be threatened if the pandemic stretches to September. Of this, 98,000 is expected to come from Singapore.
SINGAPORE (May 8): With over 3.5 million cases and at least quarter million deaths globally, Covid-19 is as much as health crisis as it is an economic crisis. Governments worldwide have been forced to implement safe distancing measures and movement control orders to slow the spread of the disease and manage the load on healthcare systems. And these measures have inadvertently impeded operations of key economic activities and caused widespread global economic disruption.
The Asian Development Bank estimates this disruption to climb as high as US$4.1 trillion ($5.8 trillion) in 2020, or almost 5% of the global GDP, depending on the extent of the disease’s spread in the US, Europe and other major economies. However, the Manila-based lender notes that a quicker containment of the virus could halve the economic slowdown to US$2 trillion, or just 2.3% of global growth. Of this, developing Asia, comprising 45 countries including Singapore, China and India, is said to account for approximately 22% to 36% of the total cost of the pandemic.
