Now that the Netherlands is once again in half a lockdown, the economy will be hit hard. The economy is in danger of “breaking down”, warn experts and professors.
The Prime Minister’s press conference with tougher measures will have really surprised few people. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that they will put a heavy economic burden on the Netherlands. Experts warn against this, such as Tilburg professor of banking and finance Harold Benink. He talks about a dormant need to more or less contain the virus, because otherwise there will be no economic recovery this year. In any case, we can already debit the coming month. Benink calls it a “greyish veil“:
“There is now a kind of gray veil over the country, people will also spend less in shops, entrepreneurs with investment plans may postpone it. […] You will see more bankruptcies and layoffs. Hospitality and retail businesses that bought into their reserves during the first wave are now bottoming. The Dutch economy can take a beating, that’s right, but these kinds of new measures are of course incredibly expensive. We really have to make sure that we get it under control together, otherwise we will destroy our economy. ”
Marieke Blom, the chief economist of ING Netherlands, lists a few sectors that will have a hard time: the hotel and catering industry and the retail trade, especially fashion stores. They are already on their lips after the first wave of last March and April. Can they absorb that second blow?
All in all, it looks bad economically for the Netherlands. But all experts agree on one thing: this semi-soft lockdown is ultimately the right measure if it means that that avoided virus can be suppressed. But we will only know in a few weeks whether that goal will be achieved. In the meantime, the economic damage is already happening every day.
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