‘DAMAGE’: Diminished market demand has become a reality amid travel restrictions and a recovery is evasive, the president of the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 26, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute (元大寶華綜經院) yesterday cut its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 2.3 percent to 1.5 percent as the COVID-19 pandemic deals a blow to the global economy with no signs of easing anytime soon.

“The damage caused by COVID-19 is evolving beyond the depths of existing economic models, because health experts around the world do not have a full grasp of the disease yet,” said Liang Kuo-yuan (梁國源), the Taipei-based think tank’s president.

Research institutes at home and abroad are comparing the pandemic to the SARS outbreak of 2003 or the global financial crisis of 2008, but there is no guarantee that the analogies are valid or sound, Liang said.

However, the one thing that is certain is that the virus is quickly sweeping from Asia to Europe, the US and other parts of the world, dimming global trade outlook and chilling consumer activity, he said.    [FULL  STORY]