Day: April 14, 2020

With Covid-19 spreading worldwide, the global economy faces mounting downward pressure. Uncertainties are on the rise. China’s foreign trade is encountering major difficulties,” said Chinese customs spokesman Li Kuiwen. Overall in the first quarter of 2020, China’s exports dropped 13.3 per cent, with imports down 2.9 per cent.Last week, China’s Ministry of Commerce said that imports and exports had improved in March after the coronavirus outbreak caused a dramatic collapse in the first two months of 2020, but conceded the outlook for China’s exports remained gloomy given the economic damage…

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The devastating coronavirus pandemic has forced the world into an unprecedented social experiment: a “new normal” of social distancing. In an effort to contain the spread of Covid-19, the pneumonia-like disease caused by the virus, governments have first encouraged, then compelled people to practise social distancing, or keeping a physical distance between individuals. People have been told to stay and work at home whenever possible, avoid crowded areas and suspend social gatherings – with varying success. Behavioural scientists say social distancing is challenging for humans, as innately social creatures, and has come…

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Authorities in British Columbia have decried a Vancouver protest that depicted Covid-19 as “fake news” and called for the defiance of physical distancing rules, with the provincial health minister blasting “self-promoters” for exploiting the suffering of others. Social media photos and videos showed about 15 people taking part in Sunday’s protest, gathering at City Hall in spite of provincial health orders banning people from different households mingling closer than two metres apart. The protesters then walked towards downtown Vancouver. The protesters called for people to defy the physical distancing rules…

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Pakistan may have another financing window that may be almost equal to, if not bigger than, the investment under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the Global Investment Consortium (GIC) mulls over investing billions of dollars into the country. The consortium is considering investing up to €50 billion on a public-private partnership basis in different megaprojects like Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme, Reko Diq copper and gold project and Diamer-Bhasha dam and power project at a time when economies around the world are struggling to combat the fallout from Covid-19. GIC…

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Pakistan plans to seek rollover of half of nearly $28 billion external public debt that is maturing over the next three years, as the Bretton Woods Institutions begin their meetings that will also review possibility of writing off loans of member nations. The country seeks the fiscal space to help out its citizens affected by the coronavirus pandemic, as an independent assessment puts the fiscal needs of reaching out to all the households with bare minimum monies at Rs678 billion per month during the lockdown period. However, the federal government’s…

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