China's economy shrinking 9% in first quarter amid coronavirus outbreak

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China's economy shrinking 9% in first quarter amid coronavirus outbreak

Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday that China’s economy will likely shrink 9% in the first quarter, underscoring how the coronavirus has disrupted normal business activities, while China reported an uptick in new cases of the disease, most of them imported.To get more Shanghai economy news, you can visit shine news official website.
Goldman cut its estimate for China’s first-quarter gross domestic product growth to a 9% contraction, from a previous forecast of 2.5% growth, citing “strikingly weak” economic data in January and February that was reported on Monday. It also lowered its full-year GDP forecast to 3% growth from an earlier estimate of 5.5%.

For the fourth straight day, imported coronavirus cases in China outnumbered cases of local transmission.

The rising risk of imported cases has prompted some parts of the country to tighten monitoring of foreign travelers, and the Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday advised its citizens to avoid travel to high-risk countries.

Mainland China had 21 new confirmed cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, up from 16 a day earlier. Of the new cases, 20 involved infected travelers from abroad.

Raising further concerns about spread of the disease, a man recently returned from Spain has tested positive for the virus - despite showing no symptoms - and has been put under observation and into quarantine, according to a statement on the website of the city of Mianyang, Sichuan.

An additional 25 passengers who had shared a flight with the man and two of his family members have also been subject to quarantine, the statement said.

In contrast to the growing number of imported cases, mainland China had only one case of locally transmitted infection on Monday, in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province where the flu-like disease appeared in humans late last year.

The capital Beijing accounted for nine of the imported new cases even as it imposed tough restrictions to screen out and isolate infections coming from abroad.

Beijing Capital International Airport has cordoned off a special zone for all international flights, with all disembarking passengers required to submit to health checks.

Transit passengers were sent to their connecting flights, while non-transit passengers were shuttled to a nearby processing venue from which they were dispatched to designated places for compulsory 14-day quarantine.

Beijing also closed its new Daxing airport to international flights and redirected them to the older Capital International Airport in the northeast of the city, in order to contain any new infections in one facility.