Markets decline amid global retreat

Hong Kong stocks dipped significantly on Monday amid sharp declines of other major markets around the globe as fears over the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus weakened investors' confidence in the world economy.

Economists said the continuing spread of the pandemic will suppress global economic activity in the near future, but China's economic growth may see strong signs of a rebound starting in the third quarter with the help of government measures to expand domestic demand and ease the impact of the outbreak.

They expected to see relatively stable performance of China's A-share market in the future despite an overall drop in Asia-Pacific markets as China's businesses gradually return to normal.

With markets in the Chinese mainland closed for the May Day holiday, the benchmark Hang Seng Index closed Monday's session at 23,613.8, down 1,029.79 or 4.18 percent, and the China Enterprises Index lost 441.85 points, or 4.4 percent, to 9599.02.

Global investors fear the epidemic will continue to hit world economic growth despite many nations' efforts to stop the decline.

Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor of international trade at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, said the fall in the Hong Kong market is spurred by concerns over the damage to global growth caused by COVID-19.

"Despite the improvement in epidemic control worldwide, many countries' recent plans for reopening markets may bring about a second wave of COVID-19 cases, which may pose new threats to the global economy's recovery in the future," Liu said. "Due to the epidemic's impact and the lack of new momentum, the world will continue to experience an economic slowdown this year."

The International Monetary Fund said in a recent World Economic Outlook that COVID-19 would sink global growth into the deepest recession since the 1930s. The global economy is projected to fall 3 percent this year.

The IMF predicted China's economy will likely grow at 1.2 percent this year and rebound strongly to 9.2 percent in 2021.

Liu said that while China faces new challenges because of the pandemic, its economic growth may see a recovery starting in July with the gradual resumption of work nationwide. He said the government will take stronger stimulus measures, such as a more proactive fiscal policy and a more flexible and appropriate monetary policy, after the opening later this month of this year's delayed two sessions, which are China's top annual legislative and advisory meetings.

To hedge against the pandemic's impact, Beijing has already announced a series of key measures to expand domestic demand and support business hit badly by COVID-19.

Amid the outbreak, the country has also seen new growth opportunities from new types of digital business, and it is ramping up efforts to boost new forms of consumption and speed up new infrastructure construction to inject more impetus to the economy.

Experts said the big spending on new infrastructure and measures to spur new types of consumer spending will help cushion the impact of the pandemic and is in line with the government's ambitions to foster high-quality development. They added that more effort is needed to help companies resume production.

Tang Jianwei, chief researcher at the Financial Research Center of Bank of Communications, said the country made it through the year's worst time in the first quarter, and China's economy may gradually get back to normal in the following months on the premise that the pandemic's global spread can be contained.

"The government should take more measures to help the hardhit small and medium-sized companies and low-income people, such as offering more loans for companies to pay rent and employee salaries and providing subsidies for low-income and unemployed groups," Tang added.