Pakistan handled Covid-19 better than India: Rahul Gandhi

Opposition leader also shares a graph on Twitter predicting Indian economy to shrink by 10.3%

Slamming the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party's government, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that Pakistan and Afghanistan handled the novel coronavirus pandemic better than India.

"Another solid achievement by the BJP government," said Rahul, sarcastically, in a tweet while sharing a graph of projected GDP growth of different countries. "Pakistan and Afghanistan handled Covid better than India," he added.

Another solid achievement by the BJP government.

Even Pakistan and Afghanistan handled Covid better than India. pic.twitter.com/C2kILrvWUG

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 16, 2020

The graph showed the contraction of Indian economy by 10.3% — the highest in the region by far — while rest of the countries did significantly better than India.

According to Hindustan Times, this was the biggest slump of any major emerging nation and the worst since independence.

Earlier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its report had predicted that Asia’s third-largest economy will contract 10.3% for the fiscal year compared with its June prediction of a 4.5% drop.

Pakistan’s economy, which in the last fiscal year contracted by 0.4%, is projected to grow by 1% in this fiscal year 2020-21, the World Economic Outlook (WEO) had said in its report.

The WEO noted that inflation in Pakistan could be 10.2% on an annualised basis, which by 2025 is expected to remain around 8.6% and the unemployment rate, which till this fiscal year was 4.5% may further jump to 5.1%.

The IMF projected over 13.3% increase in unemployment in Pakistan within a year.

The IMF report projections suggest that Pakistan is in stagflation – a condition in which the economic growth rate is slow while unemployment and prices of goods and services are high.

The report observed that the revision was driven by second quarter GDP outturns in large advanced economies, which were not as negative as had been projected.

China’s return to growth, which was stronger than expected, and signs of a more rapid recovery in the third quarter, it said.

While the global economy is coming back, the ascent will likely be long, uneven, and uncertain, the IMF maintained.

But it observed that prospects had worsened significantly in some emerging markets and developing economies where infections were increasing rapidly.

The IMF also released the Global Financial Stability report, which showed that Pakistan’s External debt service through the end of 2021 as percentage of foreign currency reserves 102%.