Germany's Altmaier: Still too early to quantify coronavirus impact on economy

BERLIN (Reuters) – The coronavirus epidemic will have a “slight impact” on the world economy, but it is still too early to quantify how much growth it will cost in the end, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Monday.

“It’s not yet possible to determine whether and what effects the coronavirus will have on economic growth,” Altmaier told reporters in Berlin.

“We expect it, of course, to have a slight impact on the global economy. How big this (impact) will be depends on how quickly the virus is contained and how quickly the number of new infections decreases,” Altmaier added.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) told world financial leaders of the 20 biggest economies (G20) meeting in the Saudi capital over the weekend that it predicted the coronavirus epidemic would shave 0.1 percentage points off global growth.

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