Covid 19 badly affects world’s economies, MNA Syma Nadeem

Karachi (HRNW) Recently in a Seminar held by DRI Democracy Reporting International in collaboration with SDG Secratariat Mna Syma Nadeem Federal Parliamentary Secy Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination Pakistan and Convener of SDG 7 Alternate Renewable Energy spoke about
Industrial Opportunities created during Covid 19 and Our Government’ s Response under these circumstances.
She also spoke at length about the Health Emergency that crashed the entire Heavy weight Economies of the world and how the world went into a recession due to the closure of the OPEC refineries and cutdown of the Production putting pressures upon the prices to go lowest in the history.
The Energy Sector was badly hit and result was a massive disruption in the Supply Chains mainly due to the unavailability of Naptha and Diesel industrial fuels.
Chinese market took the brunt and as it went into a lockdown mode it’s monopoly in the USA and Europe left a void.
Pakistan took it as an opportunity along with other Countries as Bangladesh Cambodia, Vietnam and Srilanka.
Pakistan instead of going into a complete lockdown opted for smart lockdown and altered its business plans and products to suit to the demands of the present times ie related to Medical equipment as PPEs, Sanitizer s, Masks and Ventilators.
In Surgical instruments we already had 9.57% orders in the Fiscal year 19-20 but it went up to 100 billion dollars and 500 billion dollars at the end of the year.
Our IT industry boomed. Our Food Supply Chains reverted to online delivery systems and also tapped the Halal meat markets.
Then our Construction industry was given a push through Amnesty schemes and Tax exemptions and subsidies etc
Long time closed down Textile industry revived and jobs were created through multiple shifts as orders started pouring in.
Even State Bank gave low cost loans to Rozgar Schemes.
Under these circumstances the Energy sector recognised the need to transition to Alternate Energy resources that promised low cost stabilised economy that reduced the reliance upon fossil fuel imports and also reduced the green house emissions to control Climate change .
Our Government in this regard took many initiatives and approved the ARE Policy in 2019 giving a 60-65 %Energy mix.
Subsequently 12 foreign Power companies signed during Covid.
One such big example is of World bank approving a 450 billion dollars Support to KPK to transition to Renewable Energy Resources.
Similar Solar generation plants were also installed in Baluchistan and other provinces.
Recently The Minister of Science and Technology Fawad Chauhdary also identified 3 priority industry mainly Agriculture, Electronics and Manufacturing of Electric vehicles in Pakistan.
Our large scale Manufacturing had the largest growth that doubled from July to November from 7.4% to 14.5% as of now.
In the end MNA Syma Nadeem she suggested to work upon an industrial policy and digitalise all the industries.
She stressed upon One window operations for SECP, FBR and NBP.
She also suggested to cutdown on imported raw material and encourage fast track SEZs.
Her take on SMEs was to take them under the umbrella of Banking network.