The Delta Variant, Travel Restrictions, and the Global Economy
The Delta Variant has been causing travel restrictions to increase, which has, in turn, caused companies to hold back on large investments and on making large decisions. This has been dealing an untold amount of damage to the economy.
The situation is most dire in Asia, with many countries refusing to lift travel restrictions that have been in place since the spring of 2020, with any countries allowing visitors requiring them to undergo long periods of quarantine.
These restrictions, which are also occurring in Europe and elsewhere to a lesser extent, are hurting the tourism and higher education industries, as well as causing companies to rethink their strategies related to the overseas.
Evidence of this comes from the US-China Business Council, who have stated that travel restrictions are among the most pressing issues for their members. Around 30% of the respondents present in the council have said they delayed or postponed business decisions that were highly significant because there weren’t executives present in the country. Additionally, the American Chamber of Commerce chapter in Southern China has stated that not as many larger projects are starting up. Businesses have stated they’ve been hesitant to start more due to an inability to send in engineers who could supervise those projects through the end.
As a silver lining, the Chamber predicted that total investments overall would remain steady and that companies would still invest within small projects. However, the Chamber has also said that a lack of large investments would harshly impact China’s manufacturing output in the near future. Other business owners have also cited that it’s more difficult to establish discounts or create bonds with factory owners since face-to-face interaction is absent.
Negative effects have also been recorded in Italy, starting from the enormous negative impact of restrictions on tourism, specialized trade fairs, and foreign trade sector.
On the other hand, Japan has also stated that it may be seeking an alternative way to handle all these restrictions as its economy is being negatively impacted. Australia may be taking a similar approach soon, since it’s lost massive amounts of revenue and jobs in the education industry due to an inability to provide many international students with visas.
The United States administration has recently announced that travel restrictions will be eased for fully vaccinated foreign travelers visiting the country from the beginning of November.
The travel ban will be removed for travelers coming from most of Europe, the UK, China, India, Brazil among others.
It is hoped that this easing of restrictive measures will help the recovery of the world economy.
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