Coronavirus China shares in biggest fall in four years | Everyday Big News

Coronavirus China shares in Biggest Fall in Four Years

As the battle could contain the virus continues fears about the impact of the coronavirus has now reached the economy hundreds of billions of dollars have been wiped off the value of leading Chinese companies on the first day of trading since China's markets opened after the Lunar New Year holiday.

STOCK MARKET:

Now it's the Shanghai Composite Index we're talking about it closed nearly eight percent down that's its worst performance in nearly five years the slump coming despite the Chinese government injecting more than 170 billion dollars into the markets to try

BUILD HOSPITAL:

And ease investors’ concerns meanwhile a special hospital to deal with the crisis has been opened in whoo-hah and that's the city at the center of the outbreak what is amazing about this hospital.

It was built in just eight days the 1,000-bed hospital one of two dedicated facilities built to help tackle the outbreak.

INFECTED PEOPLE:

we are expecting the second one to be finished on Wednesday more then 360 people in China have now died from the coronavirus more than 17,000 people have been infected

WORKER STRIKE:

And in Hong Kong medical workers have been striking to demand the closure of the border with mainland China there are real fears of the virus spreading into the territory

CONFERENCE:

And in the last few minutes, we've been keeping an eye on a press conference from Hong Kong's chief executive Kerry LAN she has now said that 10 out of13 with the mainland will be suspended,

And as I said after they leave they will come back again and therefore they may still cause concern because there's risk of them bringing back the disease.

So today I'm going to announce that for all land crossings and sea crossings there will be just two boundary control points there's a sunchunBay PCP as well as a Hong Kong or Macau bridge.

REACTION:

It's taking you straight to Shanghai and join our correspondent there Robin Brandt a significant move there from CarrieLam Robin what's been the reaction or you're right further restrictions put in place by the semi-autonomous government there in Hong Kong first.

They reduced air traffic coming from the mainland to Hong Kong last week by about 50% and shut down various other ways of getting into Hong Kong today they've gone even further now just leaving three ways to get into Hong Kong from the Chinese.

Mainland the first is by air into the main airport the second is through the Schengen Bay Area and the third is through that newly-built bridge opened last year that links Macau the Chinese mainland,

And Hong Kong so they're trying to restrict the areas to restrict the travel but also so they can create these bottlenecks whereby they can assess people going out but of course more importantly as well coming in I mean the context

Here is that HongKong is a travel hub obviously a huge number of people going through it so that presents a concern with spread many of them from the Chinese mainland but also during the SARS outbreak some 18 years ago Hong Kong was hit disproportionately hard and that's why I think it is even keener to take the measures.

It can to try and ensure that isn't repeated this time around and Robin, there's been worries for days now about the impact of the coronavirus on the Chinese economy and we're seeing evidence very real evidence of that today yes certainly in the short term.

I mean the markets here today were just a kind of a sea of red in the context is it's the first time investors have had a chance to express their feelings since the end of the extended Lunar New Year Festival,

So yeah there was going to be a sell-off anyway but it was pretty severe when it came and the market here in Shanghai where I'm talking to you from that closed down nearly eight percent overall about 400 billion dollars’ worth of value wiped off leading companies it spread to commodities.

As well which is hugely important in terms of a gauge of China’s economic health so you know copper steel rubber cotton all of those down by 678 percent?

This is a barometer not so much of how investors think the Chinese government has dealt with or is dealing with the outbreak but about the future and about the impact they'll think it has on will have on China's economy,

And rememberChina's economy already has to deal with a slowdown in its growth rate the like of which it hasn't seen for some three decades so all the government has been trying to use some measures to try and ease the slowdown.

There it's now going to have to go further you wonder what else is left in the tank well

I'm good to see you thanks for joining us from Shanghai