Market Segment
January 28, 2020
CRU: Economic Impact of Wuhan Coronavirus
Written by Jumana Saleheen
By CRU Chief Economist Jumana Saleheen
Given the importance of China to our industry, this Insight sets out the potential impact of the Wuhan coronavirus on commodity markets. Using the SARS episode as a benchmark, the impact on Chinese GDP and industrial production could be as large as 1 percent—but that estimate comes with a large margin of error at this early stage, as we are still learning about the virus. The impact on global commodity prices was virtually zero during the SARS epidemic, but the commodity price and demand impact is likely to be much larger now, given that China consumes around half of the world’s commodities today.
