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Pakistan PM Seeks Debt Relief for Developing Nations to Fight Virus

Ayaz Gul

   ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan appealed to the
   international community Sunday to provide developing countries with an
   urgent debt relief to help tackle the COVID-19 crisis facing them.

   Khan made his "global initiative on debt relief" appeal on a day when a
   Wold Bank report warned countries in South Asia, including Pakistan,
   India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, are on course to experience their
   worst economic performance in 40 years in the wake of the coronavirus
   outbreak.

   In his nationally televised speech, Prime Minister Khan said the
   developed world is focused on containing the deadly pandemic through
   lockdowns and dealing with its economic impacts at the same time.

   But he lamented struggling economies like that of Pakistan have been
   hit hard by restrictions on movement that have halted economic
   activity, caused widespread unemployment and triggered new challenges.

   While stopping the virus from killing people, the "biggest worry" for
   the developing world now is that people are dying of hunger as a result
   of the lockdown , Khan lamented.

   "The problem they face now is a lack of fiscal space. We don't have the
   money to spend on already the overstretched health services and to stop
   people from dying of hunger."

   Khan insisted that rich countries have come up with trillions of
   dollars of relief packages for their people to offset immediate
   economic fallout, but that luxury is not available to his and other
   developing nations to manage the unfolding challenges.

   "To give an example of Pakistan, with a population of 220 million, so
   far the maximum stimulus (relief package) we could afford is $8
   billion, and this is the issue with most of the developing world," he
   said.

   Khan's government rolled the largest social protection program in
   Pakistan's history last week to pay nearly $1 billon to more than 12
   million poverty-stricken families, or an estimated 80 million
   individuals, to help alleviate the economic fallout of the outbreak.

   "Therefore, I will be appealing to the world leaders, to the heads of
   financial institutions, to the Secretary General of (the) United
   Nations to launch an initiative that will give debt relief to
   developing countries to combat the coronavirus."

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