Gelisim News

Mentioning that the world's largest economies are among the countries most affected by coronavirus, Asst. Prof. Dr. Ebru Gül Yılmaz said: “The highest number of cases in 9 countries, which are America, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England, Turkey, Iran and China, accounted for 74 percent of the total number of cases in the world. The share of these countries in the global gross domestic product is 56 percent. In other words, the largest economies of the world are among the countries most affected by the coronavirus.”
 

Saying that the economic effects of the coronavirus are at the global level is quite natural, Asst. Prof. Dr. Ebru Gül Yılmaz said: “We know that there is an economic slowdown in the world before coronavirus due to the trade wars and the general demand level contraction. Global trade, which grew by 3.4 percent in 2018, shrank by 4 per thousand in 2019.”

Reminding that China realized 4% of world production during the pandemic caused by SARS virus in 2003, today this rate has increased to 16%, Asst. Prof. Dr. Ebru Gül Yılmaz from Istanbul Gelisim University articulated: “All these data indicate that the economic effects of coronavirus will be global and at a high level. The main measures taken against the virus at the global level are the restrictions and prohibitions in city and country border crossings, import and export restrictions and prohibitions in foreign trade goods. Examining some data that is thought to be important from the Chinese economy, where the virus was first encountered and the period of regression was affected by the measures, may be useful in creating a prediction: In China, we see that the capacity utilization rate, which was 77.5 percent in the last quarter of 2019 and 75.9 percent in March 2019, dropped to 67.3 percent in March 2020. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data, with an average of 51.07 in 2020, has recovered in March after reaching the lowest level in the last 10 years with 27.50 in February 2020, and reached 46.7. The Chinese economy, which has been giving foreign trade surplus for a long time, gave a deficit of 7,1 billion dollars in February and gave a surplus of 19.9 billion dollars in March. The export figure, which was 292.4 billion dollars in February, decreased to 185.1 billion dollars in March, and the import figure which was 299.5 billion dollars in March decreased to 165.2 billion dollars. This corresponds to a 69 percent contraction in total foreign trade volume from February to March. It is highly probable that the reason for this contraction was due to foreign trade restrictions, which were increased by the spread of the virus worldwide in March. Because, with the data of 2018, China is a country that dominates the world foreign trade with 10 percent. The country, which is called as the factory of the world and has a high volume in total, has a high impact on the global order.”

Yılmaz also mentioned the aviation industry and said: “On the other hand, it is obvious that the possible negative effect of the virus on tourism revenues will be undeniable considering the available data. According to the data, we see that the number of daily flights fell from 190 thousand to 58 thousand from January 2020 to March, which is the process of spreading coronavirus worldwide.”
 

Stating that after the COVID-19, the global economy cannot return to its old dynamics for at least a certain period, Yılmaz said: “However, it is also worth mentioning the positive impact of production, which is included in the concept defined as negative externalities in the economy, on the issues such as environmental pollution and global warming. According to the preliminary calculations of Climate and Policy website CarbonBrief, there was an 18 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from the beginning of February to mid-March due to the drop in coal consumption in China. This decrease means a reduction of 250 million metric tons of carbon pollution, which corresponds to half the UK's annual carbon emissions. However, the decline in demand and the resulting decrease in production can led to a decrease of about 400 million mt in carbon emissions, a figure representing approximately 9 percent of the European Union's cumulative 2020 emission target according to preliminary estimates published last week in the European Union.”
 

Yılmaz ended her speech as follows: “According to the research conducted by KPMG, the effects of coronavirus, which can last between 3 months and 12 months, will have a slowing effect on economic globalization, however, it is an another option that is expected to continue to produce and consume all around the world by protecting nature and distributing resources more fairly, together with the lessons that we hope that humanity will have taken in this process created by the virus.”