Hong Kong stands to lose as much as $40 billion from the Sars outbreak, economists and analysts polled by the South China Morning Post say. But as the number of active infections continues to fall, the outlook for the worst-hit sectors - retail and tourism - is improving.
Hotels, restaurants and stores together account for 9 per cent of Hong Kong's GDP. If current woes continue in these sectors to the end of next month, the experts estimate this would result in an overall loss of about a third of their $120 billion annual turnover.
The good news, however, is that conditions seem unlikely to get much worse than that - and some analysts are more optimistic.
'The situation seems to have got better,' said UBS economist Vincent Chan. 'In the past two weeks, I have started to see people going out again.'
Indeed, Mr Chan's most optimistic scenario now has losses as low as $17 billion, compared to the $34 billion or more he had been expecting just a few weeks ago.
Perhaps more importantly, it has become clearer that certain other businesses have, at least initially, been spared much damage. Banks, for example, are likely to ride out the storm relatively well. Manufacturing and trade - barring a calamity on the mainland - will also survive the crisis.
As in any downturn, size clearly counts.
