Professor Qing Wang | Source | Professor of Marketing at Warwick Business School

The world relies on China, not just as an exporting nation, but as an increasingly important consumption market. While small businesses and tourism in China will be hardest hit by coronavirus, it will also have an impact on multinational companies that view China as a key market, such as Burberry, and the car industry, which relies on Chinese-made parts to keep its global supply chains operating smoothly. Coronavirus is likely to have a much greater impact than the SARS outbreak in China in 2003. Then China had just joined WTO [the The World Trade Organisation] and its economy and trade relations with the US were on an upwards trajectory.