Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that the Covid-19 is a global issue and must be dealt with globally, and emphasized the need that the help to developing world has to be much bigger than what has so far been envisaged.
Speaking to the virtual UN event on financing for development (FFD) in the era of COVID-19 and beyond, the prime minister stated that G20 had taken really a big initiative of giving debt relief but bear in mind that this really had to be thought through.
He added that the help to developing world had to be much bigger than what had so far been envisaged.
The prime minister added that in the developed world there were 1.5 billion people but in developing world with the population of around six billion people, the problem, unless it was dealt with holistically, the world was not going to recover from this recession.
The prime minister said that the total amount of stimulus package his government could afford to give its economy was $8 billion, which as compared to other countries was very little. The obvious reason of giving $8 billion only was that the government did not have the fiscal space to revive the economy, and look after the vulnerable in society.
He said that his government had a huge ambitious programme of fighting climate change by planting 10 billion trees but all the money was now being diverted to deal with the coronavirus affectees of lockdown.
He said that it was very important for the developed world at this critical juncture to look after the people of the developing world.
He said he spoke to the prime ministers of Ethiopia and Nigeria as well as president of Egypt and all of them were facing similar problems that are being faced by Pakistan.
The prime minister said the world became insular when the COVID-19 hit and it was very important that the world look at this issue globally, and added that he was sure if the developed countries put their minds together and if the world dealt with it globally, it would come out of it very soon. "Right now the things look very bleak," the prime minister said.