Substantive chit

By: Barbados (chair, Caribbean community)

The perspective of economic issues before covid-19 in developing economies

 Africa
1. African countries are severely affected by trade conflict between China
and the United States. China is Africa single largest trading partner,
whereas the United States places fifth. Analysis done by IMF indicates that
intensified trade tensions and increased trade policy uncertainty in the
United States, slower growth in China, lower commodity prices and tighter
financial conditions have affected the lower growth in Africa. The
economies most affected were commodity exporters, countries with
important link with China and global markets.
2. Due to trade war Africa has created the largest continental free trade
area
 East Asia
1. The trade tensions had downside risk to East Asia’s growth, particularly
in its potential to severely disrupt global production networks. Due to Tariff
actions created lots of global policy uncertainty, the region’s investment
prospects had also dimmed from 2018.
2. Policy makers in East Asia only looked for short term growth and took
measures accordingly in 2019
 South Asia
1. Textile industry in Pakistan faced short term disruption due to
suspension of bilateral trade between Pakistan and India
2. Notwithstanding to the conclusions of China and the United States,
short-term risks remained tilted to the downside which made a fragile
global outlook and important impact of trade tensions.
3. The economic growth percentage of India has been on downfall for over
the past few years even after the implementation of GST and other
economic schemes.
 4. Oil exports had dropped to as low as 100,000 barrels per day in 2019,
from almost 2.5 million barrels per day exported in April 2018 which was
just before the USA withdrew from the nuclear deal.
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