Asian Development Bank (ADB) has underscored the need for fiscal consolidation on an urgent basis as the country has been experiencing current and fiscal deficits. According to its latest report, the areas for specific attention include broadening the country's tax base, committing to policy reforms and improving the country's business environment. But the report seems to have ignored a key fact that clearly undermines or will undermine the incumbent government's efforts aimed at obtaining fiscal consolidation: the coronavirus pandemic. That is why perhaps prime minister Imran Khan has pointed out that the Covid-19 is a global issue and must be dealt with globally, emphasizing the need that the help to developing world has to be much bigger than what has so far been envisaged.
Although the situation brooks no complacency, the government needs to take ADB and other leading agencies into confidence about the enormity of challenges the Covid-19 created for economies like Pakistan's.
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