The effects from the Coronavirus have started to have a negative impact on a number of shipping-related industries and markets, from the dry bulk market, to the tanker and from ship-repair businesses in China, to crew-training schools in the Philippines. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “the coronavirus outbreak is estimated to negatively affect global economy by at least EUR400bn this year, representing around the 0.4% of global GDP. The degree to which different economies will be affected varies, with some countries looking at damages only in few industries. In that spirit, since the Greek economy is not very reliant to the Chinese one, we can assume that the sector that will suffer most will be tourism, taking into consideration the upcoming holiday cancellation domino effect from Asia based citizens”.

According to Intermodal’s SnP Broker, Mr. Zisis Stylianos, “the Chinese government announced that aggressive measures will come into effect in an effort to limit the impact of a major shock from the spread of the coronavirus outbreak to the global economy. Part of these measures will include a brave injection of 1.2 trillion yuan (EUR 156 billion) in the country’s financial system as well as tariff exemptions on US farm, medical and energy products. In an effort to assess the extent that the economic impact the virus outbreak will have, Goldman Sachs analysts estimated that only a 0.1%-0.2% of the global economy will be affected, with this cost climbing up to 0.3% of the global GDP in the most pessimistic scenario”.