FAISALABAD: Global economy is in the grip of multidimensional problems and sustained efforts are required to avert the issues of bankruptcy and default particularly by the vulnerable economies, said Engineer Ahmad Hassan, Chairman Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce &Industry (FCCI) Standing Committee on R & D and CPEC.

He identified 10 major factors contributing towards global meltdown and said that this situation has been further complicated during the last few years. He said that Covid inflicted the first blow and its aftershocks are still being felt by the weaker economies.

He said that GDP growth nose-dived and financial institutions had to repeatedly amend their growth forecasts. He said that supply chain problems are also haunting the third world countries and it may take many years for them to fully recover from its negative impacts.

Engineer Ahmad Hassan said that Russian-Ukraine war has added to the miseries coupled with climate change which is marked with droughts, scarcity of water with ever increasing temperature. Continuing, he said that unequal distribution of wealth is yet another problem which is further widening the rich and poor divide. “This situation is more visible in poor countries in the form of uncertainty fomenting repeated change of governments”, he remarked.

He quoted the data from Oxfam and said that the bottom half of the world population accounts for less than 1% of global wealth, whereas the richest 10% holds approximately 82% of global wealth. He said that vulnerable economies are forced to borrow excessive loans which have ultimately become a debt trap and they have actually lost their economic sovereignty to the World Bank and IMF, etc.

He also pointed out the need for technology transfer to help the developing countries with other measures to stabilize their economies in addition to discouraging unbridled imports from the developed countries.

Engineer Ahmad Hassan condemned the misogyny and said that our societal behaviour is a major hurdle in the mainstreaming of women. “Female population in Pakistan is 49% but we failed to exploit their potentialities”, he said and added that at least 30% to the national GDP could be added if women are made an integral part of the economy. He said that the population explosion has also dampened our growth.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022