Covid-19 threatens to knock 0.41 pct off Vietnam GDP

According to "The Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Outbreak on Developing Asia" recently published by the Asian Development Bank, Vietnam fared better than Singapore whose GDP growth forecast could drop 0.57 percent, Mongolia (0.74 percent), mainland China (0.76 percent), Hong Kong (0.85 percent), Thailand (1.11 percent ), and Cambodia (1.59  percent).

The report indicates the outbreak could cost Vietnam $675 million in the best-case scenario, $1.01 billion in the moderate-case, and $1.9 billion in the worse-case.

The report stated the outbreak hurts Asian developing economies in many ways. These include "a sharp but temporary decline in domestic consumption in outbreak-affected economies, and possibly investment if the outbreak affects views on future business activity; declines in tourism and business travel..."

ADB further noted that countries significantly affected are those with strong trade and production linkages with China. 

With the outbreak development remains highly uncertain, ADB analysis suggests a global impact in the range of $77 billion in best-case scenario to $347 billion in worse-case scenario, or 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent of global GDP.

In a moderate scenario, globall losses could reach $156 billion or 0.2 percent of global GDP. 

As of Tuesday, confirmed Covid-19 infection in Vietnam had risen to 33.

The Covid-19 outbreak has thus far spread to 115 countries and territories around the world, with the death toll climbing to more than 4,000.