"The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded rapidly globally and began to show signs of ‘infecting’ the financial markets. As a result, we have adjusted our projections for China’s real GDP growth in 2020 from 6.1 percent to 2.6 percent," the CICC said in the report.
According to the report, the CICC expects China’s exports in 2020 to decrease by 18 percent from the previous year, which would be the main reason for the nation’s GDP growth to decline in the last three quarters of this year.
Nevertheless, the CICC predicted that external demand for Chinese products could rebound by the third quarter and pick up pace rapidly in the fourth quarter as overseas companies begin to recover after the pandemic becomes under control.
After the first outbreak of COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province in December, the deadly disease has spread quickly to over 160 countries around the world.
As of Monday, COVID-19 has infected nearly 300,000 people globally, and killed more than 14,700 of them.
