Chairman’s Message

The corona virus, which has become a global epidemic, has reversed some processes at both the national and international level. As a result of the disease, which has become widespread with the effect of globalization, states have closed themselves and closed international flights. Does this situation dissolution of the Globalization? brought to mind the question. Really? What kind of world system is waiting for us in the post-corona era?. It is difficult to predict what the world will look like once humanity solves the problem of Coronavirus. a lot will change for sure. We can already see many changes. The economy, people’s behavior, food preferences, lifestyle, forms of work are changing, etc. The importance of remote work and learning via the Internet is increasing. A lot will change, but we do not know how much, because there is no answer to many questions about the potential for the continuation of the epidemic, now the Coronavirus pandemic. We don’t know when the vaccine will be invented? Maybe only in a few months or later. These are the estimates of pharmaceutical companies. We do not know whether the Coronavirus virus will mutate and create its new, equally dangerous varieties. We don’t know where these Coronavirus came from? Has it been released from thawing Antarctic ice, or has it been passed on to humans from animals, e.g. bats living in China or perhaps other animals? There are various theories on this subject, but none have yet been confirmed. There are many question marks.

Among the emerging nations, India seems to be the worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic as the strength of the economy has deteriorated the most in India in the first half of 2020. However, India was the most affected in the first half and Taiwan was the least affected. As per IMF’s projection, India’s real GDP growth is expected to contract 10.3 per cent in 2020, which is the highest contraction among the 10 emerging markets. India is also the only economy with a double-digit contraction. On the other hand, China is expected to see 1.9 per cent growth, the highest among all of them.

 At 4.9 per cent retail inflation in 2020 will be the highest in India. Inflation has eased in most of the emerging economies, except India. Average inflation during the nine-month period of 2020 has more-than-doubled in India, while in most of the emerging nations it was lower than the same period in 2019.

At 7.2 per cent, the fiscal deficit too is high, but not the highest. China, Brazil and Russia have higher fiscal deficits than India. Macro-Vulnerability Index, which calculates macro risk based on inflation, fiscal deficit and current account deficit, also is not favourable for India.While India along with Brazil has the highest government debt, private non-financial sectors’ leverage is among the lowest. India’s government debt stands at 72.2 per cent of the GDP and private non-financial debt is at 57.8, indicating lower levels of leverage. India has also seen one of the lowest credit growth. While India’s central bank has seen the highest expansion of its balance sheet, a similar growth is not visible in money supply.The data till August also shows that India is one among the emerging countries which saw a higher decline in merchandise exports. Till August, India’s merchandise exports had declined 18.3 per cent, only lesser than Russia with a contraction of 24.4 per cent. While Taiwan saw a growth of 2.4 per cent, China had a marginal decline of 0.8 per cent.