Saudi and Azerbaijan clinch $300m renewable energy projects

Saudi and Azerbaijan clinch $300m renewable energy projects

DUBAI: Unusual or harrowing would probably be good terms to describe 2020. As the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the world, it was a harbinger of economic troubles on one hand. On the other hand, there were companies and stock markets benefiting from new ways of doing business, such as working from home and ordering goods and services on the internet.

The K-shaped recovery, where some benefited and others lost due to the pandemic, probably best describes what happened. We saw bifurcation, with East of Suez recovering more quickly from the pandemic and even growing, while stock markets in North America, China and some selected other markets reached new highs despite growing unemployment.

Let us start at the beginning. When the pandemic took the world in its grip, global stock markets reacted strongly. The S&P 500 fell some 28 percent and the Nasdaq 23.5 percent. This development was repeated the world over. Borders closed and the world pretty much went into lockdown.

This was bad enough in member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but it caused incredible hardship in many emerging or developing economies such as India, where day laborers lost their income, forcing them to travel back