2020: The Global Economy Passed the Darkest Moment

    The sudden pandemic is the most serious infectious disease that mankind has suffered in a century. The global economy, which already fragile enough, quickly fell into recession, so as trading, investment, and employment. The impact is far exceeded the great financial crisis back to 2008.

What have we experienced in 2020?

    At the beginning of 2020, the dark clouds hanging over the world were only the U.S. presidential election, the ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China, and the deadline of Brexit, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the pandemic and the haze of unprecedented lockdowns.

    Then, global economic policymakers turned to emergency mode. Central banks around the world slashed interest rates to new lows, with the overdrive of quantitative easing. Ministries of Finance issued more bonds to finance their fiscal policies to the crisis.

    Governments were doing their best, but this outcome appears to be too late to save millions of jobs around the world and avoid the hundreds of billions of dollars in public debt. As certain industries, such as travel and airlines, face long-term impacts from the pandemic, many jobs may be gone forever, leaving a potentially longer-term scars on the economy.

    There are fears that the collapse in international trade will be more severe than at any time since the WWII, but the 2020 decline in trade is not far from what it was during the global financial crisis.

    Looking forward to 2021, the world economy is expected to recover slowly amid the pandemic. It must be emphasized that cooperation and confidence around the world are the keys to get world economic recovery.