Discovered vast oil reserves but drilling could be environmentally damaging. The worlds factory has been shuttered supply chains have been broken flights of been grounded tourism decimated thats the real world consequence of the coronavirus and the epidemic has yet to peak outside china growth could this year want the o. E. C. D. To 1. 5 percent from its previous forecast of 2. 9 percent growth below 2 and a half percent indicates a global recession as markets crashed Central Banks stepped forward to say that they were ready to support growth the Federal Reserve cut rates by a half a percentage point its 1st emergency cut since the financial crisis in 2008. Now whether Central Banks have the firepower of the more than 700. 00 rate cuts and trillions in phone buying after the financial crisis is another question after all that it was the stock markets that benefited most from the rate cuts little trickle down into the real economy unlike the 2008 crisis where banks needed a desperate infusion of cash after they lost a bet on sub prime mortgages this time they need governments to step forward to stimulate the economy case in point governments may need to find money to bail out airlines the industry stands to lose 113000000000. 00 in revenue European Regional Airlines fly below ready in financial trouble went into administration after bookings collapsed due to the virus the i. M. F. And World Bank Say that theyre ready to help poor countries where Health Systems are weakest including providing emergency funding the world bank has pledged 12000000000 dollars and the i. M. F. A set aside 50000000000. 00 so we had that grim warning from the o. E. C. D. That growth could shrink this quarter for the 1st time since 2008 Ratings Agency standard and poors believes 200 11000000000. 00 could be knocked off asia pacific economies and weve had grim Economic Data chinas factory activity slumped to a record low last month now this is a supply side shock what exactly do we mean by that will previous recessions have come about because consumers have stopped spending this coming recession that is more like the oil shock of the early 1970 s. When middle east states cut off crude supplies which means that companies dont have the labor all supplies to make goods just to illustrate that further zeros jessica washington reports now from indonesia. On the outskirts of jakarta this 6000000000. 00 project is one of chinas socalled built in road investments construction is on hold for now pending a Safety Assessment but the project is facing more serious concerns the team is depleted workers who went back to china for the Lunar New Year cant return because of a ban on chinese travelers the minister for investment also says the supply of Raw Materials from china is disrupted the fast Train Service is supposed to start from early next year but the coronaVirus Outbreak could put the brakes on the project and slow down construction this is just one example of how the outbreak is directly investment and disrupting supply chains and countries all over the world and dealing with the fallout from an. Happened 1003. 00 the chinese economy is only one percent of the Global Economy and 19 percent. Of chinas capital is very much in. Needed and used globally countries are feeling the strain in different ways in Australia International education is the countrys 3rd biggest export but a travel ban has left thousands of Chinese Students unable to return to university it could cost of the sector millions if they cancel in romans thailand has lowered its Growth Outlook for the year as its economy suffers from the absence of chinese tour groups italys already sluggish economy will take a further hit with a number of towns and manufacturing hubs in lockdown and trillions of dollars has been wiped from u. S. Equities pushing stock markets around the world into the red what were also seeing is a disruption of supply chains as companies have slowed down manufacturing in china that has impacted other asian and pacific countries have a lot on those imports into their Manufacturing Processes no longer are we stand alone countries we operating Global Supply chains and thats what the current of r. S. S. Really exposed governments are looking for ways to ease the economic burden hong kong announcing a stimulus package a cash handout of around 1200. 00 to every adult indonesias government meanwhile will provide massive discounts on hotels and flights for foreign and domestic travelers economists say measures like these are expensive but necessary this is the challenge that governments have consumers. Aspies governments only have a few labors to pull in this crisis one is providing confidence in the Health System and then the 2nd is giving some stimulation to spending by other discounting elements or lowering the cost of did these are short term Bandaid Solutions ultimately theres only one way to improve the health of the worlds economies finding a cure to the virus. Well lets pull all of this together with our panel of Experts Joining us now from london but ill have phase c. E. O. Of metro high from singapore rajiv. Via skype rajeev is the executive director asia pacific chief economist at i. H. S. Market gentlemen welcome to you both but lets start with you 1st we heading for a global recession well i think the chances are very high that we are indeed heading for the label recession i have a least that we could add to whats called a technical recession we have 2 quarters of negative growth whether we had sort of a deeper recession way used way you see shop increases unemployment is still hard to tell but at the very least as a very high probability that we do indeed and a technical recession rajeev would you agree with that and what sort of recession are we talking about here supply side recession well our base case is the world growth will be slowing down but we still have growth in our base case of around 2 percent for the World Economy but clearly the 1st order rubi a very big negative in one china as well as many other asia pacific on a mees whether region then progress to the situation of a scenario global recession really will depend on how much this epidemic spreads globally clearly now we have a very substantial escalation in south korea iran and also italy so its certainly a growing risk that we could see this escalating into a pandemic and affects the whole World Economy and that could destroy the Global Consumption and in that kind of scenarios there is certainly a risk that it could evolve into global recession but at the moment our. World growth in the order of 2 percent is what were going to have this year below to Central Banks have the file. Power the wherewithal to at least cushion any sort of recession Interest Rates already have about as low as they can go up by now that is indeed true i mean obviously weve seen this past week theres been coordinated central and action from numerous central bank notes meet the fed they cut rates by 50 basis points markets have responded on balance then favorably to that so at the margin it does seem like theres actions are cushioning the blow somewhat but as you do as you rightly point out there are a number of countries from japan to the euro zone and indeed even the u. K. Rates are very very low already so theres a limit to how much further they can indeed cut rates but theres also something more fundamental which is that this is actually a health issue where people obviously are catching the virus its spreading as an infection theres a pandemic or possibility of a pandemic and so there is only so much a central bank can actually do to mitigate that whats needed more is a Health Response and a mitigation policy to soften the spread off the virus that also to limit casualties from it. What do you make of the feds emergency rates cut. Well clearly they were trying to take action to. Be a bit preemptive on expectations that the spreading epidemic would affect the u. S. Economy and certainly our surveys of u. S. Manufacturing and also services from month of february do indicate that already u. S. Companies are signs of feel the impact of weaker you know demonic coming out of asia in particular of course china is an important market for revenues for many u. S. Multinationals so i think part of the plus what weve seen in Financial Markets with a lot of you know selling in recent weeks have all kind of account come together to. Get the fed to be more preemptive in their action and i think thats why they moved between their shed your meetings and i think that also of course spooked the markets that markets became wary that the fed seeing a big shock coming out for the u. S. Economy and that actually perhaps was a little bit about counterproductive action but we would expect the fed to move more and we would also expect many other Central Banks to also take further action weve seen a lot of asian Central Banks from the australian central right already moving and theyll be a lot more easing certainly in Asian Countries which are at the forefront of a lot of the economic up to now and there will be a lot of financial stresses on companies that are in the forefront of all of this particularly in china now in south korea small to Medium Enterprises are going to face a lot of financial stresses in the coming weeks ahead so Central Bank Action is one of the important tools to try to pump more liquidity into the. The Financial System and also to the extent that its possible to Lower Borrowing costs for these companies bilel President Trump made it quite clear he thought the feds percent rate cut wasnt enough and that they should be doing more but what more does he does he mean well i think President Trump has a big focus on performance of the s. And p. 500 stocks in general he often tweets about the level of the stock market and so i thought you know i think that what front wants is the fed to do whatever it takes to ensure that the s. And p. 500. 00 remains at high levels so after the cuts by the fed only this week the initial response of stocks were to fall and his present from there responded to say they should do more as it happens a few days later stocks have have actually rebounded much more strongly and so my sense is that present from you is for them to cut rates whenever there is a large correction rajiv ultra loose Monetary Policy since the 2008 financial crisis boosted assets and stock prices as we were just saying thats failed to generate substantial rebound in economic growth. Is it fair to say that rate cuts will be less effective to combat any economic pain caused by a health emergency. I think in general terms thats true because the nature of the stock is quite different to a traditional economic downturn because what were seeing here is panic amongst households they dont want to go out and in countries like china and south korea what were seeing is people want to stay at home. Only order online and therefore theyre not going to do a lot of the normal shopping and purchases that they would do such as buying cars buying durable goods on Electronic Items theyll just buy household essential oils and try to order it online so that very much really results in a contraction in Consumer Spending and i think that is the big difference where Government Action whatever they do on monetary stimulus or fiscal stimulus its hard to force the consumer to spend in this kind of situation. And i think that is the fundamental difference and why easing Monetary Policy has significant limitations and gratian bilel lets talk about. Some countries some specific countries who you mentioned its a league which of course has been one of the hottest countries hit by the coronavirus it says it plans to spend 3600000000 euros and stimulating the economy that sounds a lot but given the size of the economy its not really its only as a company that contract it in the last quarter. What most of the the government be doing is italy headed for recession well 1st of all i think that there is a very high child safely that is currently in recession it had made some growth in q 4 last year this Current Quarter should see negative growth once again it is a bit charles that q 2 that the next quarter should also see negative growth as well and it sums of what the government can do one is that should be a fiscal you know. Response and we all saw from to see say that there are also constraints italy of course its overall debt levels are high and say the European Union maybe a bit more cautious around them expanding the fiscal balance too much but the important thing on the fiscal side is that it has to be the rights hype of the fiscal support so the issue here is that there will be Numerous Companies that will lose revenue in the coming few months of courses and so theyll need support from the fiscal side or from the center by all side they may be people who will be off from work as the ill and they may not necessarily get paid for prolonged periods of absence from work suddenly support for on that side as well so the type of fiscal policy that is needed is not just about the size of the fiscal policy its also the type of fiscal policy that has to be specifically addressed to a Health Crisis roger lets come back to asia south korea but the what 10000000000. 00 in 700000000. 00 plus in indonesia singapore and japan though a day headed to risk towards recession i think japan which is the 2nd largest economy in the asia pacific and one of the Worlds Largest economies is definitely facing the risk of entering recession 1st quarter. The 4th quarter on the 2019 was already quite contractionary because of the impacts would be consumption tax hike and now in the 1st quarter you not only have the negative in still on the consumer from the consumption tax but also you now have this negative shock from chinas economic slowdown weaker orders for japanese manufacturing so i think there is a real risk risk that you will. You know endure technical recession in the 1st quarter of this year and also. For singapore i think for the 20 to 20 year there is a growing risk of recession the in time to of the chinese epidemic back in beginning of february was very very dramatic in singapore because chinese tourism is so important for the chinese for singapores Tourism Industry so that took my age or below immediately when. Singapore government decided that visitors from china would be temporarily barred from entering so that meant to chinese tourism collapsed overnight and so i think you know as escalated the risk that when we look at the full year it could be a year of recession from singapore and the government itself has a knowledge that bouts of refs back in europe belleisle is germany ready to provide any form of stimulus it hasnt in the past despite International Calls and voices at home. Growing for it to do so a bit of drool german industry is in is in recession at the moment. Yes indeed i mean theres been a known go debate in germany well within germany and outside of germany that germany should do something on the fiscal side and i think this is the occasion where they will end up doing something there are some challenges theres certain rules they have within the constitution and within parliament that was straight how much fiscal stimulus they can do however there are caveats to that in socal come emergency situations they can engage in fiscal stimulus and there is indeed significant commentary amongst ministers within germany in recent days for them to enact some kind of fiscal stimulus so my sense is that they will instigate some kind of fiscal stimulus especially when the number of cases in germany starts to increase and it has indeed been increasing of of late germany in particular not only does it suffer from the slowdown in china it also suffers if the rest of europe is slowing down including italy so in many ways germany is at the forefront or was at a crossroads of all the all the negative forces that are coming out from this from this Health Crisis and so i think in the end they will be some fiscal stimulus however the response will be slower than most of the countries around the world mainly because of the general reluctance for the germans to. To run fiscal deficit gentlemen but ill rajeev his was many thanks indeed for helping us draw all of that together really good to talk to you thanks for being with us on counting the cost thank you thanks very much. Now the United States has pledged 3000000000. 00 in emergency funding to develop a vaccine for co the 19 govern the dayton says universities how to run a dozen private companies are involved in the race to find a vaccine and a series Heidi Joe Castro has visited a lab in maryland where research has say theyre making some progress. The potential answer to stopping the coronavirus maybe swishing around inside these traits researchers at the u. S. Vaccine company novaks say they have made a protein that stops the virus from binding to human cells we are working. And i can be held me to significant progress in a couple weeks scientists here receive the coronavirus gene sequence on january 10th they say within weeks theyve cloned a noninfectious element of the virus using ovary cells from a north american caterpillar as a protein factory so now we have insect ovary cells making a spike protein which we then purify and that becomes a vaccine the novaks procedure has worked to make vaccines for the flu ebola and murmurs for the corona virus that appears to be effective as well clinical tests are expected to begin this spring the full licensing takes years vulnerable communities could receive the experimental vaccine on a compassionate use basis much sooner the incentive is still save and healthy as quickly and as soon as possible in the race to contain the corona virus a win for the 1st across the finish line with a vaccine or a treatment is a win for all and so government researchers here at the National Institutes of health are partnering with private labs to quicken the pace of Drug Development moderna is another u. S. Bio for making progress its Coronavirus Vaccine is already in the end i was hands in preparing for Clinical Trials in april and i think thats commendable if we have to come up with you might actually be you know several vaccines that are going to work in the corona virus has killed thousands and is heading toward a pandemic u. S. Health Officials Say this is the fastest science has ever moved to develop a vaccine but it could still be more than a year before any is massively deployed. Now Oil Companies in the democratic republic of congo have discovered vast oil reserves but theyre below 10000 year old people and next to the congo rainforests environmentalist say that drilling for the oil would release tons of carbon thats stored in the peat aljazeera as malcolm webb reports now from the democratic republic of congos capital brazzaville. Beneath the swampy forest lies carbon equivalent to about 20 years of emissions from fossil fuels in the us and stored in peat lands the scientists discovered here in the republic of congo 3 years ago the government didnt allow us to go there and film this is the governments video but it did allow Oil Companies to drill there last year. Its license to Oil Exploration in blocks of land across more than half of the peak lands and environmentalist say if wells extracted it risks releasing 30000000000 tons of carbon stored in the peat. It would be catastrophic even if we tried to exploit the oil in an eco friendly we we still have to destroy the ecosystem. Or it will make the area i want to see before the exploitation of other resources and also indeed. So what. The river congo is the worlds 2nd largest river by volume and the rain forest that sits in its basin is the worlds 2nd largest after the amazon and its leaves and branches pulling from the trees partially decomposing in the ground in the form the peat lands over about 10000. 00 yeahs have been discovered on both sides of the river in swampy areas and the carbon stored in them beneath the ground is as much as is stored above the ground in the entire forest. The congolese government signed an agreement to receive 65000000. 00 of funding from european governments to preserve the pete lands and the forests to perve them but the activists say the agreement doesnt rule out Oil Extraction the countrys africas 3rd Largest Oil Producer 2 Oil Companies announced major on shore Oil Discoveries near the peak lands last year. But the environment minister told us the peat lands a safe. Community and what we are saying to the International Community is that the congolese government will not. If we ever find oil even if we have to do it if we find. Areas we will do our best to do a good job pete lands are also home to millions of people the government says oil revenues help communities environmental activists say they dont and that if Oil Extraction goes ahead here the Worlds Largest tropical land and its vast carbon reservoir will be gone forever malcolm webb aljazeera republic of congo and thats our show for this week if youd like to comment on anything that youve seen you can get in touch with us by tweeting me a finnigan on twitter please use the hash tag a j c to see when you do or you can drop us a line counting the cost of that is our email address as always theres plenty more for you online al jazeera dot com slash c. T. C. That takes you straight to our page and there youll find individual reports links even entire episodes for you to catch up on but thats a for this edition of counting the cost im adrian for the game from the whole team here in doha thanks for being with us the news on aljazeera is next. And out the seas for the blind and a robotic arm for the disabled. By jungle straightly an engineer isnt venting tools to help people gain independence go to a sunny sunny days or decided that will put the ability to recognize objects on the far end so that people with for better vision will be able to recognize everyday objects women make Science Group of gals episode 4 on aljazeera. We understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. So no matter where you can hand out 0 who bring you the news and Current Affairs that matter to each. Aljazeera. Jews or. Where ever you. Im Richelle Carey and these are the top stories on aljazeera italy is expanding travel restrictions to the entire country akim down 60000000 people to contain the corona Virus Outbreak and president and move follows another spike into us from the virus despite a strict quarantine imposed in the north and chinese president xi jinping has arrived and move on where the corona virus originated as a new infections continued to slow down state media says the government may ease travel restrictions in parts of who they province which has been locked down since january and the white house says us president has not been tested for corona virus even after he flew with a congressman who is now quarantined himself earlier announced plans to soften the economic affair