New coronavirus likely to affect PH economy—Oxford

Oxford Economics, one of the world’s top independent global advisory firms, said the Philippines is one of the economies that would be affected by the new coronavirus outbreak because its tourism industry relies on Chinese tourists.

Oxford said in a report that weaker Chinese imports and tourism and disruption to global supply chains would take a toll on the rest of the world, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Economies where travel and tourism accounts for a significant share of GDP and which are more reliant on Chinese tourists are likely to be impacted by this crisis the most include: Hong Kong, China; Macao, China; Thailand; Cambodia; and the Philippines,” Oxford said.

It said the importance of China’s outbound travel grew steadily over the past two decades, with its significance as a tourism source market increasing substantially since the previous SARS outbreak in 2003.   

Data showed there were over 73 million departures from China in 2019, roughly a tenfold increase from departure levels in 1999. As a share of global departures, China accounted for 6.9 percent of all departures in 2019, with only Germany and the United States accounting for a higher share of global departures.

The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the 2019 coronavirus outbreak that claimed the lives of around 1,000 individuals in the mainland China would have a negative impact on the Philippine economy this year.

IMF resident representative to the Philippines Yongzheng Yang said in a news briefing at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that the spread of the dreaded disease had caused a lot of anxieties and travel restrictions that could heavily impact the tourism industry.

“It looks that way... We do expect a negative impact to the Philippines due to the outbreak,” Yang said.

“China is one of the largest sources of tourists [for the Philippines],” Yang said. 

The IMF retained its 6.3-percent growth projection for the Philippine economy in 2020, driven by higher fiscal spending of the government and backed by the recent monetary policy easing.

The projection was contained in the conclusion of the 2019 Article IV Consultation on Jan. 27, 2020 with the Philippines by the IMF executive board.