Pandemic to hit growth in Asia, China: World Bank

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to sharply slow growth in developing economies in East Asia and the Pacific as well as China, the World Bank said in an economic update on Monday.

The Bank said precise growth forecasts were difficult, given the rapidly changing situation, but its baseline now called for growth in developing economies in the region to slow to 2.1% in 2020, and to -0.5% in a lower case scenario, compared to estimated growth of 5.8% in 2019.

In China, where the coronavirus outbreak originated in late December, growth was projected to slow to 2.3% in the baseline scenario, or as low as 0.1% in the lower case scenario, compared to growth of 6.1% in 2019.