Soon, insurers, TPAs have to reveal hospital track record Coronavirus to slow China GDP growth to 3.8% in Q1
ACC net profit drops 62.7% to `273 crore
Cement maker ACC reported a 62.68 per cent decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 273.28 crore for the December quarter from 732.35 crore in the year-ago quarter. Its total income was up 4.89 per cent at Rs 4,117.85 crore from Rs 3,925.61 crore. Total expenses of the company, which follows January-December as its fiscal year, were at Rs 3,709.42 crore against Rs 3,585.32 crore of the corresponding quarter, up 3.46 per cent.
In order to help policyholders make informed choices, the insurance regulator has proposed to mandate insurance companies and TPAs to disclose various important parameters about the network hospitals providing cashless health services on their respective websites.
This would include the number of hospital beds, ICU beds, the doctor-bed ratio, doctorpatient ratio, doctornurse ratio, the number of qualified doctors, nurses in ICU and general wards, number of surgeons or interventionists like cardiologists, gastroenterologists who are on the rolls of the hospital and those who are not on full time roll.
Other performancerelated data to be published include average time for admission and discharge and average length of stay in hospitals. Insurers and thirdparty administrators (TPAs) will also have to disclose the Caesarean section rate.
“This move is aimed at ensuring that for a particular ailment or surgical intervention, hospitals do not keep patients longer than necessary,” said the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.
Global rating agencies and brokerages have started assessing the impact of the deadly coronavirus on the Chinese and global economy and they expect China’s first quarter growth to fall sharply to 3.8 per cent and full year growth to 5 per cent.
They also expect the virus to be contained by as early as March 2020 to May 2020 as it doesn’t like sunlight, high temperature and humidity.
According to Nomura, the first quarter growth rate in China may dip to 3.8 per cent before a bounce back in Q2 on pent-up demand. Outside China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand will be impacted the most.
Virus was not so deadly outside Wuhan with just two deaths outside China and much lower mortality rate outside Wuhan in China, says brokerage firm CLSA after interaction with a leading Hong Kongbased medical expert working on such viruses for the last 25 years.
S&P Global Ratings estimates China’s full-year GDP growth will fall to 5 per cent in 2020, from 5.7 per cent projected earlier, but it feels the lost ground will be made up in 2021.
"Most of the economic impact of coronavirus will be felt in the first quarter, and China's recovery will be firmly in place by the third quarter of this year," said Shaun Roache, AsiaPacific chief economist for S&P Global Ratings.
“We now expect an abovetrend 6.4 per cent growth rate in 2021, compared with our previous forecast of 5.6 per cent,” S&P said.
“China accounts for onethird of global growth so a 1 percentage point slowdown in the country's growth rate is likely to have a material effect on global growth.
“The global impact will be felt through four real economy channels: sharply reduced tourism revenues, lower exports of consumer and capital goods, lower commodity prices, and industrial supply-chain disruptions,” S&P said.
“These spillovers could become larger if markets start to price in the risk of a material global slowdown and financial conditions tighten as risk premia rise across asset classes. Pressure on the renminbi exchange rate will be important to track, but for now, markets are taking the impact in their stride,” the rating agency said.
The impact of coronavirus is still uncertain, but Japanese brokerage
Nomura expects China’s GDP growth to slow from 6 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 3.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 (previously 5.8 per cent), before rebounding to 6.4 per cent in the second quarter. For full year of 2020, Nomura now expect 5.6 per cent versus 5.7 per cent earlier.
“For the rest of Asia, the economic impact for now is mainly indirect via weaker China demand, disruption to supply chains, collapse in visitor arrivals from China and lower commodity prices rather than direct lower tourism revenues, impact on vulnerable local services, as infections outside China are low,” Nomura analyst said.
However, IHS Markit, a London-based information provider said on Friday, said the outbreak of coronavirus will have a larger negative effect on the global economy than the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003, as any slowdown in Chinese economy would send not ripples but waves across the globe.
"The slowdown in Chinese growth may be a significant drag on global growth. In 2002, China contributed 23 per cent of world GDP growth, in 2019 China contributed an estimated 38 per cent of world growth," IHS said.
In 2019, China's oil demand was 13.9 million barrels per day or 14 per cent of world market as compared to 5.6 million bpd in 2003 which equated to 7 per cent of world demand.