Pivotal week ahead for Irish business supply chains as coronavirus spread continues

The week ahead may be pivotal for investors and businesses monitoring the deadly coronavirus outbreak — including Irish companies whose supply chains stretch into China — as they scramble to understand whether the economic fallout will be long-lasting.

For Ireland, the focus is the large number of leading pharma companies that have bases here and which rely on China for ingredients to make medicines for the US and other world markets, said John Whelan, an expert on supply chains and global trade. The Irish Examiner columnist said the Chinese city of Wuhan — the epicentre of the new coronavirus strain, labelled Covid-19 — is a huge producer for the world’s pharmaceutical industry, making antibiotics, common drugs, and painkillers for the global supply chain.