Coronavirus Shock Could Push Europe Into a Downturn

For the full year, net profit at Daimler plummeted 64 percent to €2.7 billion. Sales in 2019 rose 3 percent, to €173 billion.

“The coronavirus provides a substantial risk for the expected global recovery, as hopes were pinned on an improvement of the Chinese economy,” Stefan Schneider, an economist at Deutsche Bank, said in a note to clients on Tuesday. A recession in Germany early this year is “quite probable,” Mr. Schneider added.

Smaller companies are also affected. Many have factories in China that have been idle or operating far below capacity.

Ziehl-Abegg, a German maker of industrial fans, has a factory in Shanghai with 450 workers who produce air-circulation systems for hospitals, among other things. The high-performance fans have been in high demand during the crisis.

Nevertheless, Chinese authorities allowed only a skeleton crew on the site last week to fill orders from newly built hospitals in Wuhan, Shandong and Shenzhen, said Rainer Grill, a Ziehl-Abegg spokesman.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/business/coronavirus-europe-economy-daimler.html?emc=rss&partner=rss