3. Impact of COVID-19 on Global Economy

As the whole domain of our world struggles to encounter the COVID-19 pandemic, its effect on the global economy is increasing—with the OECD cautioning, the present pandemic poses the biggest threat to the international economy after great recession in 2008–2009. UNCTAD, the United Nation’s Trade and Development Agency, already cautioned of a depression of global growth rate to below 2% in 2020, which may eventually rub out USD 1 trillion off the total worth of the global economy (https://​news.​un.​org/​en/​story/​2020/​03/​1059011). Richard Kozul–Wright, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD, commented—“We envisage a slowdown in the global economy to under two per cent for this year, and that will probably cost in the order of USD 1 trillion, compared with what people were forecasting back in September 2019”. On account of rising uncertainty regarding production and prices of crude oil, and by the way, the major stock indices collapsed above apprehensions regarding supply-chain disruptions that begun from China, Mr. Kozul–Wright also informed that some countries may likely to be left unharmed by the COVID-19 outbreak (https://​news.​un.​org/​en/​story/​2020/​03/​1059011) (Exhibit 3.1).