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 Finance ministers and central bank governors from the group will
hold a conference call at 1200 GMT to discuss the outbreak. But
according to the official, who declined to be identified, a
statement they are crafting does not detail any fiscal or monetary
steps
Global stocks and oil prices have made some recovery afters
policymakers indicated willingness to help ease the economic fallout
from the coronavirus, while worries about the outcome of the Group
of Seven heads' discussion kept a lid on gains.
"This is a tug of war between hope and fear. Central banks are
giving hopes with their potential stimulus," said Vasu Menon, senior
investment strategist at OCBC Bank Wealth Management.
"The question is what they will do? Monetary policy is already very
loose and interest rates are very low," he said.
Global stocks suffered a rout last week on growing fears that the
disruption to supply chains, factory output and global travel caused
by the epidemic could deal a serious blow to a world economy trying
to recover from the U.S.-China trade war.
The G7 official, who has direct knowledge of the deliberations, told
Reuters the officials would pledge to work together to mitigate the
damage to their economies from the fast-spreading epidemic.
The language of an expected statement was subject to change as it
was under discussion, the official said.
The coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan
late last year, has spread rapidly around the world over the past
week, with more new cases now appearing outside China than within.
There are more than 90,000 cases globally, with more than 80,000 of
them in China, and infections appearing in 77 other countries and
territories, with Ukraine the latest country to report its first
case.
China's death toll is at 2,943 with more than 75 deaths elsewhere.
New cases in China have been falling sharply, with 125 reported on
Tuesday, thanks to its aggressive measures to stop the spread of the
disease.
After what critics said was an initially hesitant response to the
virus, China imposed sweeping restrictions, including suspensions of
transport, sealing off communities affecting tens of millions of
people, and extending a Lunar New Year holiday across the country.
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QUARANTINE ORDERS
Now China is increasingly concerned about the virus being brought back into the
country by its citizens returning from new hot spots elsewhere, and authorities
on Tuesday asked overseas Chinese to reconsider or minimize their plans to
travel home.
All travelers entering Beijing from the hot spots of South Korea, Japan, Iran
and Italy would have to be quarantined for 14 days, a top city official said.
Shanghai has introduced a similar quarantine order.
The most serious outbreak outside China is in South Korea where President Moon
Jae-in declared war on the virus, ordering additional hospital beds and more
face masks as cases rose by 600 to nearly 5,000. Thirty-four people have died in
South Korea.
In the United States, the virus is now believed to be present in at least four
communities in the Pacific Northwest - two in northern California, one in Oregon
and one in Washington state - and authorities there are having to go well beyond
the quarantine of infected travelers and tracing of close contacts, which until
now had been the response.
Six people have died in the Seattle outbreak. The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention lists more than 90 cases across the United States, a
large bulk of them patients who were repatriated from the Diamond Princess
cruise liner that had been quarantined in Japan.
Iran, another badly hit country, reported infections rising to 1,501, with 66
deaths, including a senior official.
The death toll in Italy jumped to 52 on Monday from 34 the day before and the
total number of confirmed cases in Europe's worst-affected country climbed past
the 2,000 mark.
Germany reported 31 new infections, taking its tally to 188.
(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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