COVID impact: Economy to contract even more than estimated earlier, says World Bank
Due to COVID-19 outbreak, Pakistan’s economy would actually perform even worse than what previous estimates had warned about, The World Bank forecast said on Monday.In its latest report, ‘Global Economic Prospects’, the World Bank assessed that the country’s economy was likely to go into the red this fiscal year and would be unable to recover even next year.It forecast a negative GDP growth of -2.6pc for the current fiscal year (2019-20) and -0.2pc during the next (20-21).“Pakistan (-2.6pc in FY2019/20) and Afghanistan (-5.5pc in 2020) are both projected to experience contractions as mitigation measures are anticipated to weigh heavily on private consumption. Key labor-intensive export sectors are expected to contract sharply and recover only slowly”, the Bank said in its report.This would...