Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, April 16th.

And this is your F.T. news briefing.

The coronavirus outbreak is pushing the Eurozone's government debt to nearly match its gross domestic product.

Wall Street continues to ramp up reserves to deal with loan problems and new data show the scale

of the U.S. economic breakdown. Plus the F.T.'s Hudson Lockett will tell us why China's Central Bank has cut one of its most

important lending rates to a record low.

I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Last month the ECB decided it was going to shake off its bond buying limits as it moved to buy almost 900 billion euros of extra bonds this year.

It helps stave off another Eurozone debt crisis.

But a forecast from the International Monetary Fund on

Wednesday showed that the response to coronavirus is sending Eurozone government

debt towards 100% of the single currency area's GDP.

The IMF predicted euro area gross public debt will rise by around 800 billion euros from 2019 to

2020.

That would leave it at 97.4% of GDP, well above the levels reached during the

sovereign debt crisis. Central bankers and economists warn that the debt burdens could

still stifle how much the fiscally weaker

member states would grow.

The IMF's fiscal monitor shows that Greece has the highest debt burden this year out of all

the Eurozone countries. A number of other states including

Italy, France, and Spain, some of the Eurozone countries hit hardest by the

coronavirus will have debt piles above 100% of GDP. It'll be as high as 155% in Italy. And all this might

...