UoS organises webinar on economic challenges

SARGODHA: The international and national economists Tuesday called for investing in human capital, creating employment through small and medium enterprises, promoting local tourism, enhancing E-commerce and increasing innovations leading to productivity to deal with the economic fallout of COVID-19 pandemic.

It was said by economic experts at a webinar titled ‘Can We Build it Back, Better? Assessing Pandemic Driven Economic Challenges’.

The event was held in connection with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth’ by the University of Sargodha to discuss economic impact of COVID-19 in the country.

The webinar was attended by Dr Sun Huaping, a professor of School of Finance and Economics, Jiangsu University, China, Majyd Aziz, former president of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr Faisal Abbas, an associate professor of National University of Science and Technology Islamabad, and Dr Muhammad Nasir, senior research economist of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Islamabad.

Addressing the webinar, Dr Sun Huaping said that the firms should be encouraged to bring back labour on work amid the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and assuring all other safety measures.

The state-owned enterprises and public investments should play their active role for smooth run of the business activities and to reduce the damage caused by the pandemic, he added. Majid Aziz said that the worst-hit segment of society by the lockdown was composed of daily-wage earners and small and medium-sized business owners.

Around two-third of businesses and means of communications and transportation were still closed and the smart lockdown would only have a marginal impact on resuming normal production and revenue generation, he added.

He asked all political parties to sign a ‘charter of economy’ in these testing times as the coronavirus had hit Pakistan’s economy hard.

He also suggested the government to take pandemic driven decisions to invest in human capital, and to focus on value-added textiles for exports.

The economy was not in any immediate damage of collapse but this pandemic surely damaged our economy, blaming merely the pandemic for economic instability was not true; there was a need of restructuring the economic foundations for sustainable development, he maintained.

Sharing some facts, Dr Faisal Abbas said that the government had expected 3.3-3.4pc GDP growth before the crisis, but now the estimate had been cut to 2-2.8pc. He mentioned that the government was targeting to restrict the deficit to 7.4-7.5pc. However, it was now expected to be around 9pc due to increasing expenditure demand and fall in tax and non-tax revenues, he told.

Dr Abbas suggested the government to launch an action on creating a balance between employment creation and economic production and plan to create employment for the pandemic poorer through SMEs, promoting E-commerce, local tourism, and supporting lower middle class families in a way that they could produce home-made food.

There was a need to introduce economic stimulus package, a combine package of monitory and fiscal policy such as an employment guarantee scheme, tax reforms, avoiding excessive documentation, investment in SMEs enterprises, avoiding highly regulated economy and improvement in research and development for more innovations leading towards productivity to minimise the economic damage, Dr Nasir added.