"The recovery from the COVID-19 crisis must lead to a different economy, everything we are doing during and after this crisis must be with a strong focus on building a more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies."
It's obvious the pandemic is a big deal, but to hear Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, say these words is quite something.
Along with the UN chief's speech, statistics have been released today from across Europe, which give a picture of how uniformly the continent has been affected by the COVID-lockdown.
Manufacturing numbers have dropped off in every nation in the eurozone. But there was good news, too – unemployment hit its lowest figure ever across the eurozone. However, that was before the COVID-19 virus struck and closed down much of the bloc's economy.
And shared losses and gains are at the top of many agendas across the EU today, as ministers and the nations they represent are split between those who like the idea of "corona bonds" (shared EU debt, sold to raise money for the weaker nations in the group) such as Spain's government – and those who do not like it so much including the Dutch and German governments.
For something completely different – and it's important to remember there are other things happening in the world – the largest investment management firm in the world, BlackRock, has applied to set up a mutual fund in China, according to Beijing authorities.
Happy reading,
Patrick Atack
Digital business correspondent
P.S., did you know we send this briefing by email, too? You can sign up to receive it here.
Europe-wide manufacturing statistics have shown a downturn across the continent for the first quarter of 2020. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed the lowest levels of production across Europe for at least a decade in Poland, Czechia, Germany and Switzerland.
Eurostat figures show eurozone unemployment hit its lowest figure since 2008 in February, just weeks before much of the bloc was placed on lockdown amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Joblessness sat at 7.3 percent at the latest available count.
Germany's finance minister, Olaf Scholz, said the Berlin government planned to use $2.19 billion to help start-up businesses during the coronavirus crisis.
Meanwhile, Spain's finance minister, Nadia Calvino, said in an interview with the Onda Cero radio station she hopes the EU will come together to share the economic burden of the crisis. "There must be a system of debt sharing, be they euro bonds, corona bonds or reconstruction bonds," she outlined.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has faced criticism from his coalition colleagues over his hardline stance on the issuance of shared eurozone debt. Rutte's finance minister Wopke Hoekstra was also forced to apologize for comments he made about southern Europe's ability to react to the financial side of the crisis.
Tesco, the UK's largest retailer, has hired at least 35,000 staff to help with increased demand – especially for online services and deliveries. The firm is also giving $37.4 million to charities, as it benefited from stockpiling and bulk-buying before the lockdown began.
World-famous German sportswear firm Adidas has pressed pause on a $1.09 billion share buy-back scheme as it seeks to save money after closing all its European and North American stores.
Prices in UK shops have fallen at their fastest rate in at least two years. Average prices dropped by 0.8 percent in the first week of March. However, retailers are unlikely to feel the pinch, as grocery sales jumped to a record $13.4 billion.
It's officially been the worst quarter since 2008 for the financial markets, and it's an even worse picture in the UK, where the FTSE 100 fell to its lowest level since 1987. It's not just equities suffering, currency traders have also had a tough time – with the Norwegian krone shedding 16 percent against the euro and the rouble lost a staggering 23 percent.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has accepted an application from BlackRock, the world's biggest investment management firm, to set up a mutual fund in the country. It came as Beijing loosened rules on fully foreign-owned management companies.
A new app can tell everyone you've passed if you catch COVID-19. Would you use it?
Our correspondent in Madrid, Rahul Pathak, interviewed Spain's foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, and discussed the pandemic situation and how the nation will recover.
Do you think Spain was adequately prepared?
I don't think any country was properly prepared for the outbreak of coronavirus – for a virus that we didn't know, for a virus that we still don't know, for a virus that spreads very quickly, for a virus that has no vaccine.
It's very difficult to be prepared for such a thing. What we are all trying to do is understand how to avoid the spread of the virus as we are fighting against the virus.
And it's like work in progress. This is what makes the task of addressing this crisis so complicated for all of us, irrespective of who we are, whether we are China or we are Spain or whether we are the United States of America.
Do you think the Spanish healthcare system is strong enough to cope?
I think our health service has always been very strong. It was put in a lot of stress during the 2008 crisis, but it was a very strong health care system and it is still very strong.
But what this health care system is having to cope with now is a massive influx of patients. Many of these patients are in intensive care units for much longer periods than the average.
So what they are having to deal with is with an unprecedented crisis in terms of depth and width and thus is what makes it very complicated. Plus, the fact that in Spain we have a number of regions that have been more severely affected, where the pressure is even higher, such as in Madrid, where the pressure is even higher than the rest of the country, given the prevalence of cases in a small part of the country.
Has there been enough help from the EU?
The help from the EU for us has been in the form of the measures that the European Central Bank took to ensure credit liquidity interest rates from the European Commission in terms of ensuring that the European market would function properly, that we would not have export restrictions from one country or another, as well as flexibility to use structural funds in the EU… Very important to us.
But where we still have a bit of work to do is on the fiscal response to the crisis, which for now is not sufficient to face what we will have to face when the crisis is over. It is a massive public spend to keep our workers and our productive capacity alive through a crisis in terms of getting [finances] on the ground, as it were. I know we have excellent relations with China at the political level as well as at the business-to-business and people-to-people [levels]. We have a big Chinese community in Spain.
And what we have seen during this crisis, is all these relations have in a way emerged. Very often these relations existed, but were not very visible. And now they've become very visible. We have seen how provinces in China, where a lot of the Spanish Chinese come from, have come to support the country. We have seen how businesses in China have come to support Spain.
And we have also seen how the relationships, government-to-government, starting with the Spanish president and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, have been put to good use in terms of sourcing the equipment material from China and exchanging information and experiences by our medical systems.
What has been your economic response to this crisis?
What we have done today is put the final touches to what we think is a very important piece to wrap up the social and economic package we have put forward, addressing the needs of those who had been left behind in previous packages.
Those that in a way had fallen through the cracks, but are important to ensure that the safety nets we've put in place to hibernate our economy during the crisis brings everybody forward, whether you are a housemaid, whether you are a temporary worker, or whether you are a poor person who cannot pay your rent in the current circumstances.
We've made sure with the legislation adopted today that all these people will be covered... this is important because with this we, in a way, wrap up the social and economic response to the crisis. We now focus on the health part to make sure we win the battle against coronavirus. And we are in a position to start the transition to reigniting our economy again.
The Purchasing Managers' Index has shown a drop in production across Europe. Below are some of the biggest changes between March and February. A number over 50.0 indicates an improvement, while anything below 50.0 suggests a decline.