it's official the. coronavirus of global pandemic. travel from europe to the u.s. markets all the way down to get across fears of a global recession paralyzing invest. and it's all eyes on frankfurt as the european central bank responds to the coronavirus. the european central bank is going to decide today they're going to follow in the footsteps of the u.s. and u.k. by stepping in to support the economy and to follow that corona virus but investors

are still skeptical that further interest rate cuts or increased bond buying is going to rescue the earth from recession. italy's shock says all. food and pharmacy businesses we take a look to other countries fashion industry and the corona. business. equities and all prices fell through the floor again on. and off to the world health organization classified a pandemic donald trump a bond all travel from europe to the u.s. for 30 days. a global economy will careen into recession tokyo dropped more than 5 percent while hong kong finished down 3.8 percent sydney collapsed almost 7 percent the losses followed another brutal session on wall street with a wave after wave of bad news that's suspected to follow in europe. when its own

markets open. well the economic fallout from the corona crisis is palpable global stock markets of plummeted companies come produce due to broken supply chains work forces are increasingly paralyzed so all eyes on the world's governments and indeed the central banks some of them already reacted with interest rate cuts in a meeting at the beginning of the month the fed has lowered its key interest rate already for the 1st time in 6 months by 50 basis points to one percent u.s. president donald trump is now pushing for further cuts by next week the bank of england lowered its key interest rate on wednesday to 0.25 percent in an attempt to protect the british economy from the effects of the virus an economy that is already suffering from years of uncertainty over breaks it and experts are speculating about an intervention by the bank of japan the country doesn't have much wiggle room for a rate cut in the central banks key interest rate is already at minus 0 point one

percent the european central bank is in a similar situation its key interest rate is in there could have territory as well of minus 0.5 percent but the coronavirus might force it to provide even more liquidity to the banking system a decision is expected later today and will be covering that of course as the e.c.b. doesn't have much room for maneuver in the interest rate department one option available is to buy more government bonds in the financial markets the money goes directly into member states national budgets and the interest rates that the states pay for the bonds decrease the e.c.b. has been spending up to $20000000000.00 euros on government government bonds per month since november it may ramp up this spending it previously used the method after the 2009 financial crisis pumping around 2.5 trillion euros into the markets so only hours away from a scheduled announcement by the european central bank and with me in the studio is your call. he's the president of the european school of management and technology

here in berlin and. in frankfurt i think we're joined by chelsea delaney but 1st you are the e.c.b. rates are minus 0.5 percent do you think that will go down further so it's minus 0.5 percent is the deposit rate that banks receive or actually are punished by when they put deposits into the european central bank it may well be possible that the isa be goes a little bit further than that but the same time the scope and also the implications of these divisions are quite limited let's quickly pulling our markets correspondent in frankfurt at chelsea delay any who has joined us now chelsea what's the mood there in frankfurt ahead of this decision by the z b. nic it's going to be another brutal day here in frankfurt looking at the futures market the dax futures are down about 4 percent right now and this isn't really a reaction you would expect on a day when the e.c.b.

is expected to come in with a with an aggressive stimulus program but one i think the that the news every night that the u.s. is going to be committing a travel ban on europe has definitely spooked investors but there's also just a lot of concern right now that the programs the stimulus programs that governments and central banks are proposing aren't going to be enough to support the economy given the tremendous fallout of coronavirus that's especially relevant for the e.c.b. because it's policy is already so there's a lot of concern that cutting interest rates further and negatory won't really do much to to support the economy. picking up on that is there any limits to what central banks can do in this situation there are economic limits in that if you decrease rates further it could actually even have a come into effect in that banks will become even less profitable and will be even less inclined to give additional credit so in that sense

a lot of focus will be on the central banks but even more focus should be on the fiscal side. focus on the fiscal side so governments need to pump more money into into the economy right so the key really requirement the key challenge at this point is cash flows it's all about cash flows in the companies companies need to keep paying them for us and at the same time customize may stay away so when you look at travel to tall tales and so on and the key question is how can we overcome this liquidity crisis that many of these companies face and many of the fiscal responses are quite clear and could be done for example prolonging the text payments that companies would have to make maybe hosking for a certain period of time the social security payments they would have to take taking say companies or banks like the k. w. say government banks into action to support the liquidity that companies face so that really the clear liquidity crisis doesn't result in the solvency crisis in the end do you think that small and medium sized businesses are more in danger than

large corporations they also really in danger but but even more so is the question off what industry you're in soul travel hotels others are definitely more in trouble than than other parts of the economy like telecommunications for example it's very clear that in general small and medium sized enterprises face more financing constraints than bigger companies thus they also needs to fix support by a fiscal authorities and in particular in a country like germany that is where the backbone of the economies is constituted off the medium and small enterprises do you think the government is so far as we look at the german government on the american spoke at length yesterday the response so far with regard to the economy by the german government is it is it enough it is certainly the right direction so this question of cash flow has been addressed but we will see that tomorrow for example the economics the finance minister will meet and much more is needed to and really engage in this question a question. can

a flow be global recession be averted oh is that still on the cards it is still on the cot now the the big challenge is the big uncertainty we face so we don't know how long will this virus still be spreading how intense will it be in certain parts of the the what we already see the for example the case in italy which could easily spread to other countries in europe in the world so therefore a recession is definitely something to watch very carefully which makes it even more important for the fiscal side to react very strongly at this point of time. thank you very much the same to just a delaney in fact. we've just spoken about the reaction here in germany a german chancellor angela merkel called for solidarity and common sense as the qur'an the corona virus continues its march across the continent merkel says her government will do all it takes to ease the fallout from the outbreak that could include easing strict debt rules and increasing public spending quoted forecasts

that 2 thirds of germans could contract the virus. italy is the european nation hardest hit by the corona virus so far with the death toll close to 900 after having put 16000000 people essentially on lockdown the country's leadership has now ordered the closure for shops bars and restaurants except pharmacies and food stores in addition the government in rome has pledged a 25000000000 euro aid package to help tackle the outbreak the money will go towards both health care and businesses the country's famous fashion industry is one sector that's especially vulnerable. the fashion capital of milan is usually a life bustling city now it's like a ghost town. i mean to say what is it going it's good we have fewer people walking around for now but it does put major constraints on businesses shops are open but there are no customers and staff have to be paid anyway. your means on i

have my business have and i don't have any kind of reserves so i'm really feeling the economic impact. could impact the economy. was an annual turnover of 90000000000 euros fashion is one of italy's most important industries and even more important than the shops here in the luxury boutiques overseas the asian market has almost completely vanished in light of the pandemic. the italian government has announced a national aid package to help offset the viruses affects. we've allocated special resources to the sum of 25000000000 euros aware of the difficulties that the country faces during this emergency situation. difficult places stuff done to work with them and jensen italy's fashion industry employs more than 400000 people . the country makes over

a 3rd of its luxury goods sales in china but right now there's very little demand for high end fashion anyway. china is reporting single digit corona virus cases in who province for the 1st time today that's from thousands of cases just a few weeks ago it indicates the tough containment measures have dramatically slow the spread of the virus in the area considered the epicenter of the outbreak meanwhile industrial production has been allowed to resume in some parts of. the profits. that's it from me and the business team here in berlin you can get more on our website that's d w dot com slash business we're also on social media of course you'll feel free to drop us a line on facebook and twitter we look forward to hearing from now stay tuned for arts and culture that's up next with robin merrill. just after this quick update on global markets at this hour.

i always wonder. why.

in the height of climate change. tricks what's in store. for the future of the. comic strip in a major city. in such clincher. crime fighters are back africa's most successful radio drama series continue. this season the stories focus on hate speech prevention and sustainable coproduction the

fall of a sow's are available online and of course you can share and discuss on the africa's facebook page and other social media platforms. crime fighters to mindanao. welcome to news from the world of arts and culture here's what's coming up in the next quarter of an hour. and then the wall retrospective in london shows how the most important office of the modern age was so ahead of his time. and in our continuing series meet the germans this week rachel will and light on the losses of german fashion.

but 1st 2 weeks ago a new york court found hollywood mogul harvey weinstein guilty of 2 counts of sexual assault now he's been sentenced to 23 years in jail and the main accusers and prosecution witnesses were in court on wednesday to hear the verdict afterwards weinstein was taken directly back to a prison hospital to continue his sentence. a look back now at the key events surrounding this landmark case. february 24th 2020 harvey weinstein left the courthouse in an ambulance after being found guilty of sexual assault and rape. his trial had begun in january public interest in the proceedings was immense it was a watershed moment.