STAFF REPORTER
ISLAMABAD Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday appealed to the international community and world bodies to “launch an initiative to give debt relief to developing countries” that are fighting to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Addressing the nation and the international community through a video message, the premier said that “highly indebted countries” are facing a “lack of fiscal space” that was inhibiting their efforts to prevent the coronavirus from spreading and, at the same time, providing relief to people. Saying the coronavirus pandemic had brought unprecedented economic and health challenges, the prime minister warned of a global recession which would be worse than the Great Depression. “Developing countries like Pakistan cannot afford to announce huge economic packages [to mitigate the impact of the crisis. Countries like the United States and Japan have announced economic packages worth trillions of dollars whereas Pakistan could only announce a package of $8 billion.” The initiative called “Global Initiative on Debt Relief” will bring together leaders from different countries “notably from the Paris Club, Highly Indebted Poor Countries and heads of international organisations” to push for a more coordinated response to the pandemic, according to a statement. Based on the premier’s belief that “enhanced fiscal capacity is fundamental to recovery from the ongoing pandemic” the initiative would lay the ground for urgent debt relief for developing countries without “onerous conditionalities”, the statement added. Prime Minister Imran also called upon international leaders to “step up measures to overcome the disastrous impact of the coronavirus pandemic”. “I implore those who walk in the corridors of power to ditch out a stimulus package for the developing world to help them through this economic downturn,” he said in a video message on Sunday. “Pakistan is stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea to rather choose starvation from lockdown or the coronavirus,” he maintained. “Apart from containing the virus and dealing with the economic crisis, our biggest worry now is the people dying of hunger,” he said. “The dilemma on one side [is] stopping the people dying from the virus [and] on the other hand, preventing deaths from hunger as a result of the lockdown.” The premier said another problem the developing world faces is “a huge discrepancy in the resources available” to the developing and developed nations. While the United States, Germany, and Japan have come up with relief packages of $2.2 trillion, €1 trillion, and $1 trillion, respectively, the maximum stimulus we could afford for a population of 220 million is $8 billion, he said. “This is the issue with most of the developing world, especially the developing world that’s suffering from a very high debt-toGDP ratio,” PM Imran added, noting that “these highly-indebted countries” now face the problem of a lack of fiscal space.
