COVID-19 and Pakistan Economy

Covid 19

The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is one of the greatest challenges we have faced since World War II. Coronavirus has emerged in Asia in the late last year, Now this virus is spread all over the world except Antarctica. Cases of this virus raising day by day with high mortalities.COVID-19 affects all the people belonging to any field from health care workers to a shopkeeper and from airplane flights to car driving.

Pakistan is among the list of countries that are facing great pandemic challenges. This pandemic affects the economy of Pakistan very badly in various sectors.

Covid-19 and Education:

In the education sector, this pandemic affects all the people from kinder garden to the doctorate level. Those people who bread and butter are only teaching lives hardly due to lockdown in the country and in educational institutions. Many of the are not able to pay a tuition fee of their institutes and thus all this will result in a loss in revenue and this will affect the overall economy of Pakistan.

Flights and Economy of Pakistan:

In the year 2018, PIA has a profit of 7.8 billion against a great loss of 17.6 billion, and this loss is reduced in 2019, and the total revenue of PIA in the year 2019 is 147.5 billion. Now in the year, 2020 audits were pending but due to the pandemic PIA stops all of its flight in recent months and the crash of a PIA plane will result in a great economic loss to Pakistan.

Lockdown in the Transport and the economy of Pakistan:

Due COVID-19 government put lockdown in the country and this results in a huge decrease in traffic on roads and less consumption of petrol, diesel, and CNG, and this will indirectly result in decreased revenue to Government in the year 2020.

Lockdown in import and export:

Many organization in Pakistan running their businesses through imports and export. Due to COVID-19 pandemic in other countries and in Pakistan government ban import and export during the pandemic months. Export is reduced from 2.4% to US$19.6 billion against US$ 20.1 billion in the recent year. Thus this will result in reduced tariff generation and affects the economic position of Pakistan.

The poultry industry and Pakistan economy:

The poultry industry is the second largest industry of Pakistan and the COVID-19 pandemic produces huge damage in poultry. Due to lockdown, the farmers are not able to feed their flocks due to the unavailability of feed. Soybean is a grain used in the feed not occurs locally and is imported from other countries. Due to unavailability of this feed mills suffers a huge decrease in production and ultimately it affects the farmer.

Hatcheries also face a huge loss in this pandemic month because farmers are too ready to put flocks on their farms. Thus this will result in loss of revenue to the Government from this sector.

The agriculture industry and Pakistan economy:

Pakistan's economy largely based on agriculture. Fruits are among the most perishable items. Due to lockdown during this pandemic farmer faces a huge loss due to rotting of fruits like mangoes, peaches etc. This will result in reduced revenue.

What Government has Done so far during this Pandemic?:

The stimulus package of about Rs1.13 trillion ($7 billion ) is announced by the Prime Minister Imran Khan for the relief to the people and economy during COVID-19

For wheat procurement government allocated about Rs 280 billion ($1.7 billion) and about Rs100 billion ($627 million) for payment of loans form small level to medium-sized enterprises and agriculture sector.

A huge amount is offered to 12 million families through Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme . This NGO offering one time cash of about Rs 12,000 to each family.

One of the biggest relief was Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme offering one-time cash assistance of Rs12,000 each to support 12 million families.