An outbreak of new coronavirus pneumonia occurred in the Mainland
Hong Kong, which had suffered a SARS epidemic and lost 299 lives, was very nervous. Yesterday, the spread of the outbreak in the Mainland became the main driving force behind the Hong Kong stock market.
It should be said that after 03 years of experience in fighting SARS, the Mainland ’s ability to prevent and control epidemic diseases has been further improved
However, due to the greatly increased transportation capacity, the rate of epidemic spread will also increase. If the epidemic can be controlled in a short period of time, it will not have much impact on the macro economy, but it may still be in the early stages of the epidemic, with great uncertainty. It is necessary to continue to pay close attention to changes in the epidemic.
Looking back at the impact of the SARS epidemic on the Chinese economy in 2003, there were more than 8,000 cases worldwide, most of which occurred in the Mainland and Hong Kong, of which 5,327 were in the Mainland and 1,755 were in Hong Kong. The Mainland economy was most affected in the second quarter of 2003, but SARS did not change the upward trend of the economy at that time. In the four quarters of 2003, GDP growth rates were 11.1%, 9.1%, 10%, and 10%, respectively. The GDP growth rate in the second quarter slowed by an average of 1.5 percentage points over the previous two quarters.
Transportation, catering and tourism in the property market have a big impact
However, due to the small size of the Hong Kong economy, the impact of SARS was even greater. During the SARS period, the Hang Seng Index had the largest decline of 17%; the property market fell by a maximum of 21% from the end of 2002 to August 2003. In the second quarter of 2003, Hong Kong’s GDP fell by 0.6% year-on-year, an average deceleration of 4.5 percentage points from the previous two quarters.
Among them, transportation, accommodation, catering, and tourism industries have been hit hard. For example, the transportation, warehousing, and postal industries increased by 2.3% year-on-year, an average slowdown of 5.4 percentage points from the previous two quarters; the accommodation and catering industry increased by 7.4% year-on-year, an average slowdown of 6.6 percentage points from the previous two quarters.
In addition, the number of inbound tourists from the Mainland in May 2003 dropped sharply by 31% year-on-year, foreign exchange revenue from tourism dropped by 59% year-on-year, and the volume of mainland passenger traffic fell by 42% year-on-year. The growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods fell to 3.6% year-on-year, which was significantly lower than the annual growth rate of 9.1%. However, Hong Kong’s industrial production at that time was less affected, and fluctuations in the growth rates of investment and import and export were not obvious in that year.