CEO of BVI Finance, Mrs Elise Donovan says the Coronovirus outbreak in China is forecasted to have dire implications of the VI financial serves sector and economy. Photo: Facebook/File

According to Ms Elise Donovan on the Tuesday, February 18, 2020, edition of Honestly Speaking, whatever happens in China is going to affect the bottom line in the VI, since a significant portion of the territory's revenues comes from that country. Photo: UK Parliament

Coronovirus (COVID19) has now infected more than 80,000 globally, killing at least 2,700. Photo: Al Jazeera

"65 percent of government revenues come from the financial services industry, 35 percent of BVI financial services business actually originates specifically from China and that includes Hong Kong and Macau and that equates to about 20¢ of every dollar that goes into our revenue comes from China," she said on the Tuesday, February 18, 2020 edition of 'Honestly Speaking' on public radio ZBVI 780am.

According to Ms Donovan, whatever happens in China is going to affect the bottom line in the VI since a significant portion of the Territory's revenues comes from that country.

"People may not realise that this Coronovirus is going to have a massive impact on the BVI. We can't sugarcoat it, we can't say it any other way. We will just have to ride out this storm and ride out this challenge."

VI continuously probing other markets 

Ms Donovan added that, so far, a lot of the challenges before the global financial services industry have been macroeconomic challenges as well as economic substance.

"The uncertainty surrounding what was happening with economic substance also created a decline in the industry and now you have compounded that with the Coronavirus in China, which is our largest market."

Ms Donovan noted that the VI's economies are so interconnected with China that the Virus will have an impact on the local economy and as such, the Territory is looking into emerging markets like Africa, Latin America and the Middle East to sustain the industry. 

"I'm not trying to scare anyone, it is something that we have to be realistically aware of and see how we are going to look to put other measures in place," she said.