More coronavirus
/I really meant to write about anything but the coronavirus today, but it is just taking up a lot of space in my head. I think it is too big a deal, especially for a country like Vietnam, that is closely tied to China, for all the good and bad that entails.
A few news reports:
Bloomberg is reporting that Vietnam will quarantine all people coming from China. As part of this, the Vietnamese military will quarantine 950 people coming back from China.
Three people on a cruise from Guangzhou to Vietnam have the coronavirus. And two more are suspected to have it. There was at least risk that many more of the 4,000 people were exposed. Just remember that people can get symptoms up to 14 days after being exposed to the virus. This is why I find it difficult to go on a cruise, because I just know that my ship would be struck by some horrible disease.
Vietnam is stopping all flights from China, including Hong Kong and Macau, but not Taiwan.
All festivals are cancelled.
A manager of a resort that I follow on twitter has seen significant cancellations and employees that aren’t coming to work because of fears of the coronavirus.
Source: Vietnamese customs, charts by Vietecon.com
In positive news, there are only 8 cases in Vietnam, which is probably due to luck more than anything else. These new preventative measures surely haven’t had any effect yet. Plus, the markets were actually up today.
It kind of shocks me to think that the market could be up. Vietnam has basically cut off China, and it is going to see a significant decrease in tourists and all types of visitors while the coronavirus is an event.
Just look at exports to China. They were over $40bn in 2019, second to the US. And if you include Hong Kong, that goes up to almost $50bn. This equates to 18% of all exports. Tourism accounted for almost 6.5% of GDP and exports in 2017 (see pg 43 in the PDF).
Remember that the government would like 7% growth this year. While many of the companies on the stock market are domestic focused (banks, real estate, consumer products, retail, etc.), they all will be impacted by less traffic (both foreign and domestic). And the general concern over coronavirus.
Let’s hope China can get a handle on this soon. Maybe a vaccine can be made and distributed, although that takes time.