New virus wave threatens economic recovery – GulfToday

New virus wave threatens economic recovery – GulfToday

Global economy is set to grow by 4. 7 per cent this year, faster than the 4. 3 per cent predicted six months ago. India is leaving behind the worst financial year in the years of Independence. Since the colonial period, the financial year has run from April 1 to March 31 of the following calendar year. On March 25 last year, a week before end of the 2019-20 financial year, the government ordered a countrywide lockdown to meet the coronavirus threat. Its full impact was felt in the 2020-21 year which ends this week. Last September the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in a report on the global impact of the pandemic, forecast that India's economy will contract by 5. 9 per cent of the GDP in 2020 and recover to 3. 9 per cent in 2021. In an update published this month, it estimated that GDP contraction in 2020 was more than anticipated “” 6. 9 per cent. It expected this year's recovery also to be more - 5. 0 per cent, as against 3. 9 per cent anticipated earlier. UNCTAD's hope of a stronger recovery took into account a proposed shift in the government's