(Photo: CGTN)

COVID-19 is affecting every economy very badly. We are going to see a substantial decline in world growth. There's no escaping this because we’ve put economies into hibernation. China's economy went into hibernation for six or eight weeks. It will take time to recover.

When we recover from this COVID epidemic, and when the economy recovers, not all businesses are going to recover in the same way – some businesses, we will have to restore; some businesses, we will have to repair; some businesses will have to revive. Some will need resuscitation and some will have to totally remodel. So the environment post-COVID-19 is going to be very different. 

Unfortunately, it will enable the growth of the anti-globalization forces and probably strengthen the idea of the "America first" story. Because many people are saying, we are too dependent upon China.

But we have no choice about that. China is able to supply a whole range of goods and equipment and so on, and high-level material and so on that the world needs. There are no alternative sources, and it's stupid to try and develop alternative sources. 

The world will look for global leadership, and those who support the multilateral trade developments will be the ones that are successful. They will help shape the nature of business and the way in which it is changing and the way in which new globalization developed because the world will continue to be globalized. We can't retreat into our own individual nation-states. We simply can't support ourselves in the current world environment, we are too interconnected. But there will be still those forces that say, yes, we shouldn't rely on other countries, should be self-sufficient and so on. That's a story that President Trump sells very successfully to the American public.

We think that's most important from a business perspective, that globalization continues, that international trade continues freely, that the world Trade Organization is restored so that we can have equal access to the benefits of a global economy because that lifts everybody's living standards.