From golden goose to black swan

Tomasz Szpyt-Grzegórski, ‘Eurobuild CEE’: What’s the main factor that the health of the global economy currently hinges upon? Witold Orłowski, chief economic advisor, PwC: That’s easy right now – it’s how serious the coronavirus epidemic will turn out to be. However, a more comprehensive answer would be slightly different. If the world economy was in an excellent state, if there were no concerns about the various risks of it bubbling up on the horizon, then there also wouldn’t be as much reason to worry about the coronavirus. However, it could turn out to be the fuse that ignites all these problems that have been building up. First of all, the global economy we now have is unbalanced. China, the country that was first impacted by the epidemic, is one great, financial – an optimist would say – ‘enigma’, but a pessimist might describe it as a ‘ticking time-bomb’. Chinese finances are the weak point of its ec