Article 1)

COVID-19 AND PAKISTAN’S TRADE PROSPECTS

DR. ZAFAR MAHMOOD

The Covid-19 is such a public-health crisis that it has increasingly become an economic threat to every
economy of the world, as both production and consumption levels are simultaneously scaled back.
Concomitantly, interruption in global supply chains and transportation, after major lockdowns, has
resulted into a sharp decline in international trade of goods and services. It has pushed the global
economy into a deep recession. IMF’s World Economic Outlook has decelerated its earlier global annual
economic growth forecast for 2020 from of 3.3% to below zero in 2020 due to coronavirus effect. This
will result into a decline of global income by about a trillion-dollar and even beyond if crisis prolongs.
The ultimate effect would thus depend on: how far and fast the virus spreads and how effective policies
will be in controlling the damage to economic and social wellbeing. If the virus outbreak is short-lived
then a standard mix of monetary policies (e.g., a cut in the policy discount rate) and automatic fiscal
stabilizers (e.g., adjustment in tax rates and transfer payments to smooth incomes, consumption, and
business spending) should be sufficient to reduce adverse impacts on the economy. But if the crisis
prolongs, that now appears to be the likely case due to supply disruptions owing to malfunctioning of
production and supply networks, then the economic recovery will depend more on sustained liquidity
injections to industries by the central bank, and pro-active fiscal, trade and investment policies.

Article 2)

Addressing the Impact of Covid-19 in Food Industry:

Since late 2019 early 2020, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – an infectious disease

caused by a newly discovered coronavirus – has rapidly spread across the world, devastating lives and
livelihoods. As of late March 2020, the full impact of the virus on food security and agricultural food
systems is not yet known, nor will likely be known, for months to come as the spread of the virus
continues to evolve differently by continent and by country. What is clear is that it will have, and is
already having, significant negative effects on people along the food supply chain – from producers to
processors, marketers, transporters and consumers. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO) is particularly concerned about the potential impacts of the virus and related
containment efforts on food security and livelihoods in contexts of high vulnerability and where
populations are already experiencing food crises. Experience from previous crises, particularly from the
Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014, has indicated the significant impact of movement
restrictions and disease containment efforts on food production and access, and the importance of
maintaining and up scaling humanitarian food security interventions for the most vulnerable
populations, alongside the health sector’s efforts to avert disease spread. Within the framework of the
United Nations (UN) Global COVID-19 Humanitarian Response Plan, FAO has reviewed its ongoing
humanitarian/ resilience programming and analyzed the potential impacts of the virus in order to ensure
continued support to the most vulnerable and anticipatory actions to address the secondary e ffects of
the virus. As such, FAO is seeking USD 110 million to maintain the provision of critical assistance where
there are already high levels of need, while meeting new needs emerging from the effects of COVID-19.
Within the Plan, FAO’s efforts will focus on four main activities: • setting up a global data facility – in
close collaboration with key partners such as the World Food Programmed (WFP), the global Food
Security Cluster and the Global Network Against Food Crises Partnership Programmed – to support
analysis, and inform assessments and programming in contexts already experiencing humanitarian crises
(USD 10 million); • stabilizing incomes and access to food as well as preserving ongoing livelihood and
food production assistance for the most acutely food-insecure populations (USD 60 million); • ensuring
continuity of the critical food supply chain for the most vulnerable populations, including between rural,
peri-urban and urban areas through support to the sustained functioning of local food markets, value
chains and systems, focusing on vulnerable smallholder farmers and food workers as well as areas that
are critical to the food supply for vulnerable urban areas (USD 30 million); and • ensuring people along
the food supply chain are not at risk of COVID-19 transmission by raising awareness about food safety
and health regulations, including rights, roles and responsibilities of workers, together with national
authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) (USD 10 million).

Article 3)

Covid-19 and Food Scarcity – CSIS

A unique and terrifying moment in modern history is unfolding before us, every day. The
escalation in the number of cases in Pakistan, despite extremely low testing rates across the
country, portend a peak of both confirmed infected individuals, and fatalities that our collective
public health capacity and resources, and our national psyche, at the individual or the collective
level is not prepared for.

By the end of April, as the numbers of cases and fatalities mount, Pakistan will be in need of
extraordinary changes to business as usual in many areas. A transformed logistics and supply
chain management culture. The capacity and range of local manufacturing of food, medicine
and FMCGs, like soap. Digital payments and, in particular, contactless transactions. Public-
sector hospital capacity and mental health at large. Education and online teaching and learning.
The challenges (and possibilities) are endless.

Article 4)

Food System : Are We Facing A Global Food Crisis?

At the beginning of 2020, 135 million people around the world were already facing extreme
hunger. According to the World Food Program, that figure could rise to a staggering 265 million
people by the end of this year. In remarks delivered to the UN Security Council on April 21, UN
World Food Programmed Executive Director David Beasley said, “In a worst-case scenario, we
could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries.”

Article 5)

Covid-19 and Pakistan : The Economic Fallout.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan has risen to 24,082 as of 07 May.
Increase of 1,532new cases in the last 24 hours.

• The most affected province due to COVID-19 virus in Punjab 9,077, followed by Sindh 8,640.

• The Baluchistan government has asked the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
to provide more ventilators as the number of coronavirus cases is rising fast in the province.

• To augment Pakistan’s locust-control efforts, The Government of Turkey has offered its
expertise to the government of Pakistan.
• As per UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Pakistan is under threat of an intense
second-wave invasion of desert locusts if control measures fail to contain the upsurge of insects
within the breeding regions in the west of the country.

• According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report if not properly
controlled the locust infestation may cause a loss of Rs600 billion to the Pakistani economy.

• Percentage of deaths is 2% (38) against the total confirmed cases (1532) in the last 24 hours.