Coronavirus to thwart Africa's industrial development due to China's slowdown: UNIDO

The outbreak of coronavirus, which has already disrupted industrial production in China, is likely to hit Africa's industrial development sector due to its reliance on Beijing, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Vienna [Austria], Mar 6 (Sputnik/ANI): The outbreak of coronavirus, which has already disrupted industrial production in China, is likely to hit Africa's industrial development sector due to its reliance on Beijing, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). A new coronavirus disease -- COVID-19 -- was first detected in China's Hubei province in late December 2019, and has since spread worldwide. In late January, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in light of the outbreak.

"Specifically, the impact which we are going to see is on Africa, it has to with a very strong economic involvement of China in Africa. As China is slowing down its economy for the obvious reasons, we fear that there may be an impact in Africa, but again we are very vigilant on the resources working with our colleagues and their respective UN country teams, we are very much conscious about the impact," UNIDO's Director of External Relations Kai Bethke told Sputnik. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said earlier this month it had revised down its estimate for China's 2020 GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points to 4.9 per cent.

"The global GDP growth could slow down to as little as 1.5 per cent in 2020 if the spread of novel coronavirus intensifies," OECD said. (Sputnik/ANI)