Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday reiterated his call of a debt-relief for the developing countries, including Pakistan, to cope with the challenges, including the economic difficulties and overwhelmed healthcare system, emerged in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
Speaking at the COVID Action Platform of the World Economic Forum via video link, he said there should be a debt relief as they needed fiscal space to divert their resources to the healthcare system, besides mitigating the economic effects of the lockdown.
The prime minister said the G-20 states had already come up with a policy of debt-relief for the developing countries and in that respect he held telephonic discussions with the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, who were also facing economic difficulties, but “more work needs to be done” in order to help developing countries cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the situation of coronavirus outbreak in South Asian countries, including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, in terms of the spread of virus as well as the peak, which was yet to come, was different from that of the United States and Europe.
The prime minister said with the outbreak of COVID-19, Pakistan was facing the twin challenge of dealing with the virus as well as unemployment of around 25 million daily-wage or weekly-wage workers due to the lockdown announced by the government to check the spread of virus. The premier told the participants that the biggest challenge in Pakistan was how to mitigate the effects of lockdown. He said 25 million people in Pakistan earn daily wages. He said that due to the lockdown, they had lost their jobs, and mentioned that a total of around 120 to 150 million people got affected.
“Unless workers, daily wagers or weekly wagers go to work, they cannot feed their families.” That was the reason Pakistan started easing lockdown restrictions and first opened the construction sector, he added.
The prime minister said he was proud to mention that his government as a short term measure introduced a cash transfer programme for around 15 million poor and needy people to mitigate the effects of lockdown.
Imran Khan said that as the people around the world, including those in developing countries, had to live with the coronavirus till a vaccine was developed, Pakistan and others had to create a balance between the measures to check the spread of virus and allowing the people to work. The major difference between the developed and developing countries in terms of COVID-19 and the lockdown was that millions of people in the latter as against the West were facing starvation, he added.
The prime minister also mentioned the registration of one million youth in the volunteer Corona Relief Tiger Force in Pakistan and said the volunteers were helping the already over-burdened administration and law enforcing personnel in ensuring the implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) at workplaces to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Imran Khan said that with a challenge of managing the current account and fiscal deficits, besides decline in the economic growth, Pakistan had a tough year. He said that although the entire world was facing the challenge of COVID-19, there was a need for enhanced international cooperation to check the difficulties of poor and developing nations. “The upcoming year isn’t just a challenge for Pakistan. It’s a challenge for the entire globe. When this pandemic hit the world, every country looked inside and became insular,” he said. “But ultimately we are all connected, and therefore our response has to be global,” the PM reasoned.
In respect of the economic effects faced by Pakistan due to COVID-19, he also mentioned the decline in foreign remittances due to unemployment of Pakistani workers in the Gulf countries as well as decrease in export orders. The prime minister said Pakistan had geared up to cope with the challenges emerged in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak and think-tanks, including the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), were dealing with the situation through analysis of data and other measures on a day-to-day basis.
