LAHORE: Former finance minister Sartaj Aziz has called for a post-coronavirus economic revival plan focusing on short to medium term policies and budget interventions spanning over a period of one to three years to help people pushed below the poverty line because of the global health crisis, as well as to revive growth.

Speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute of Policy Reforms, Mr Aziz said the economy was already in dire straits when the virus pandemic struck. “The crisis is likely to push unemployment rate to 20pc to 30pc and significantly increase poverty. The income support for the poor and the unemployed will have to be increased to Rs300bn next year from Rs180bn allocated for the current year.”

In the budget for the next year, he suggested, the policies should focus on the jobless people and those pushed below the poverty line and growth. In his opinion, policymakers could revive growth by implementing policies to fix the country’s agriculture sector, encourage construction industry, and help SMEs and retail trade. Moreover, he was of the view that the government needed to increase its development spending to stimulate economic growth.

Mr Aziz said the government had sufficient fiscal space to increase funding for income support programme and implement a development stimulus. “The government has received significant financial assistance from multilateral lenders to fight impact of the virus. The reduced global oil prices and cut in interest rates also created additional fiscal space for government to spend more to help the poor and the economy,” he concluded.

Another speaker, Ehsan Malik, said Covid-19 provided an opportunity to revisit the economic policy and develop a national economic action plan with broad political consensus.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2020