ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Imran Khan said the coronavirus pandemic is a global problem and requires worldwide efforts to tackle it.

He was addressing virtual United Nations High-Level event on Financing for Development in Era of COVID-19 and Beyond,” here on Thursday. The Prime Minister said Pakistan imposed lockdown to limit social contacts in its bid to protect the population from coronavirus. However, this created another challenge of providing livelihoods to people to save them from hunger.

The government gave a stimulus package equivalent to 8 billion dollars to provide financial help to daily wagers and people of lower income backgrounds, despite its limited resources. The package was too little in comparison with huge stimulus packages given by USA, Germany, Japan, UK and other developed countries to their populations.

Imran Khan said the money that was to be spent on climate change and development programmes was diverted towards corona pandemic. He said he spoke to leadership of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Egypt to find out that all were facing the similar problems.

The Prime Minister said coronavirus has left bad imprints on global economy and Pakistan is also not immune to it. He said exports of our country are badly hurt due to weak global demand. He appreciated the steps of G20 countries to provide debt relief to developing countries. The event was hosted by Secretary General of United Nations and Prime Ministers of Canada and Jamaica. The debt vulnerability of developing countries was to be one of the six interlinked financial issues discussed at the High-Level Event.