Islamabad (Web Desk): Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that Covid-19 is a global problem that requires a global solution.
The premier said this while addressing a virtual United Nations (UN) event on Financing for Development in the Covid-19 era and Beyond.
The event was hosted by the UN secretary general and the Canadian and Jamaican prime ministers.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan imposed lockdown to limit social contacts in its bid to protect the population from coronavirus. However, this created another challenge of providing livelihoods to people to save them from hunger.
“The government gave a stimulus package equivalent to 8 billion dollars to provide financial help to daily wagers and people of lower income backgrounds, despite its limited resources, he added.
The package was meagre in comparison with huge stimulus packages given by USA, Germany, Japan, UK and other developed countries to their populations.
Imran Khan said the money that was to be spent on climate change and development programmes was diverted towards corona pandemic, the Radio Pakistan Reported.
He said he spoke to leadership of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Egypt to find out that all were facing the similar problems.
The premier said coronavirus has left bad imprints on global economy and Pakistan is also not immune to it. He said exports of our country are badly hurt due to weak global demand.
The prime minister said that when he spoke to the leaders of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Egypt, he was informed that the countries were facing problems similar to those being faced by Pakistan.
He appreciated the steps of G20 countries to provide debt relief to developing countries.
“I really welcome the debt relief initiative by G20 countries but we cannot come out of this crisis unless we look at this issue from global perspective,” PM Imran said.
The debt vulnerability of developing countries was be one of the six interlinked financial issues discussed at the High-Level Event.
On May 20, Prime Minister Imran, while addressing a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) through video link, said that the coordinated global efforts were required to overcome the challenge of Covid-19 pandemic, reiterating his call for debt relief for developing countries.
He urged the developed countries to come up with a debt relief policy to help worst hit countries because debt servicing meant that they have lost any fiscal space to cope with the challenge, especially with regards to the health sector.
