Doha: The Doha-based Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) has predicted a short-term to longterm- a matter of several months or quarters- before containing the pandemic COVID-19.
The three different scenarios, envisioned by GECF analysts, explain a time-frame ranging three months to more than eight months to absorb the coronavirus shock.. Considering the potential impact of COVID-19 on global economy, the GECF analysts have built up ‘Short-Lived”, ‘Mid-Lived’ and ‘Long-Lived’ scenarios.
As per the ‘ShortLived” scenario, the Coronavirus is expected to be contained in 2nd Quarter of 2020, which means a 3 to 5 monthlomg crisis. The ‘Mid-Lived’ scenario suggests that the pandemic to be subsided by the third quarter of 2020, hinting a 6 to 8 months period. The ‘Long-Lived’ picture suggests the outbreak cannot be contained by the end of 2020, means it will prolong a long period of more than 8 months. “In our baseline scenario, we believe that the coronavirus will be contained by Q3-2020.
As such, the world economy will suffer a drastic deceleration to stabilise around 2.7 percent, well below the forecasts in early January 2020, based on the figures of IMF, OECD and World Bank prior to the occurrence of the coronavirus”, Dr. Kamran Niki Oskoui, and Mahdjouba Belaifa, two analysts at GECF, noted.
The short-lived scenario, which in its sense is very optimistic, supposes that the duration of the disruption will be mastered in Q2-2020, through notably strong fiscal and monetary stimulus and a lifting of the imposed quarantine measures under favourable opinions of the medical experts and researchers.
In the long-lived scenario, which is a warning scenario for the world economy, the economic impact of COVID-19 could be virulent due to a prolonged disruption in the supply chains and a weak demand. In this scenario, the global trade will be contracted and global investment will remain subdued. In addition, global economy would be depressed and it will drive down commodities’ prices with all the consequences they may engender.
“It is important to highlight that under all the above-mentioned scenarios, aftershocks responses need to be considered as they could curb the stabilization of the economic growth around the foreseen levels of our today’s estimations, and thus we can expect a global economic growth much lower than the figures indicated in table1 above. Based on our analysis, which is inspired from the current worrisome situation, no economy in the world will be immune from Coronavirus and the impacts will be heavily felt worldwide if no efficient global measures are found and agreed upon”, the GECF analysts noted.
