3 SECTORS, DURING EPIDEMIC, CAN BE SUFFERED MORE IN PAKISTAN

What started as a small viral outbreak in Wuhan city of China has now engulfed the whole planet. All those who had any false hope and misconceived notions of containing this are now in shock. The world has come to a standstill. The COVID-19 outbreak is now a global event that is affecting every human being alive as of today. China suffered to contain the virus from December and has been declared cleared of the virus after 5 long months. South Korea and Singapore have also been competent enough to control the spread, but many other countries like Italy, France, Spain and the United States have not been so fortunate. This incident is more catastrophic than the Second World War. As the developed nations of the world are facing the full brunt of the disease, developing countries are yet to arrive at the point where they are overwhelmed. Pakistan is on the brink and there is a tight rope in front of a weak economy. The year ahead is perhaps the most formidable challenge the country has faced, and one that will require resilience, competence and discipline, the other side of the equation, if we fail, is worse than our darkest nightmares.

1. ECONOMY

The economy of Pakistan is the 23rd largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), and 42nd largest in terms of nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Pakistan has a population of over 220 million, giving it a nominal GDP per-capita of $ 1,357 in 2019. However, Pakistan's undocumented economy is estimated to be 36% of its overall economy, which is not taken into consideration when calculating per-capita income.

The implications for the financial system from COVID 19 can be bifurcated into two broad areas. First is the International and external impact. Corona Virus has primarily disrupted the Global Value Chain also called GVC. It means that the movement of imports and exports has been disturbed. Exporters from Pakistan are unable to process their orders and the payments from previous orders have also been halted in most cases as businesses abroad, mostly in Europe and the U.S have been shut down. Movement of goods and cargo is also blocked making it extremely difficult to maintain the flow of business. Conversely, imports cannot be completed as lock-downs have shut down every major city in the world. People are not coming to offices and Governments have ordered to work from home. This model can work for IT and service-based companies but trade involves tangible goods, which cannot be handled without human presence.

There are a huge number of private companies in Pakistan that heavily rely on imports for running successfully. Commercial importers will suffer from delays or complete stoppage of the value chain while industrial importers will have to stop production because of non-availability of raw material. After the initial grace period, the shortfalls in revenue will result in salary cuts and then finally, job losses. According to PIDE (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics), there will losses of jobs in the millions, particularly for semi-skilled and daily wage earners. Around 2.4% of the Annual GDP will be lost due to COVID-19, which is enough to send the country into a spiraling recession.

2. EDUCATION

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a culturally and linguistically diverse large South Asian country bordered by Afghanistan and Iran to the north and west, China to the northeast, India to the east and the Arabian Sea to the south. The Muslim-majority country was established in its current form after the partition of former British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, and the subsequent secession of Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, in 1971.

Currently the sixth most populous country in the world with 212 million people. Pakistan is characterized by one of the highest population growth rates worldwide outside of Africa. Even though the roughly 2 percent rate is now slowing, the country’s population is estimated to reach 403 million by 2050 (UN median range projection). There are more young people in Pakistan today than at any point in its history, and it has one of the world’s largest youth populations with 64 percent of Pakistanis now under the age of 30. Consider that Karachi is projected to become the third-largest city in the world with close to 32 million people by the middle of the century.

At a time when higher education institutions in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world are fast shifting to online learning in the wake of closures to contain the spread of corona-virus, Pakistani universities’ students took to social media on Thursday demanding the authorities to convert closures into semester break.

“We reject online education” popped up as one of the top trends in Pakistan on the micro-blogging website Twitter and the hash tag remained on the top for quite some time with most of the tweeters expressing concerns over no or poor internet connectivity and lack of, what they termed, “effectiveness” of the online education.

3. FAMILY STRUCTURE

In earlier times, women, generally, did not take to working nine to five and were happy to employ their talents at home. Maintaining the house, taking care of the children and cooking meals pretty much occupied their time and yes, it was not an eight-hour workload.

Majority population have joint family culture that support weak of the weak and make a stronger family. They prefer to live in a house together and have been witnessed some psychological issues  within families after being at home during coronavirus.