OREANDA-NEWS. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revised its November forecast for world economic growth in 2020 to decrease by 0.5 percentage points (pp) to 2.4% due to the spread of coronavirus. This is stated in the interim report of the organization, circulated on Monday.

"Assuming that the epidemic peaks in China in the first quarter of 2020 and outbreaks in other countries are limited, global growth could decline by about 0.5 pp this year relative to the expectations published in the November 2019 economic forecast", says the document. Thus, the growth of world GDP in 2020 will fall to 2.4%". Organization experts emphasize that in the first quarter the figures may even be negative, but the effect of the epidemic in such a basic scenario should weaken by the end of the year.

In 2021, if the spread of coronavirus can be restrained, and new cases of the disease will be episodic in individual countries, global GDP growth should reach 3.3%. 

At the same time, the wider spread of coronavirus in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America, as well as the failure to control the epidemic in the short term, will “significantly weaken the prospects”. "In this case, global growth could decline by 1.5 pp in 2020, halving the forecast voiced before the outbreak of coronavirus", the OECD emphasizes.