ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has called for revisiting the international policy frameworks governing trade, investment, finance, taxation and technology due to the unprecedented losses to domestic revenues due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a video statement at the General Debate of the 15th Quadrennial United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Wednesday, the foreign minister drew attention of the participants to the Covid-induced and exacerbated economic, social and public health impacts, which had resulted in unprecedented losses in domestic revenues, jobs, quantum of international trade, the FDI, and tourism revenues.

Those developments, he added, had reduced fiscal space and liquidity for developing countries and were driving inequality within and among countries.

The foreign minister echoed the call made by the prime minister for transformative global actions that were responsive to the enormity of the triple challenges of pandemic, economic contraction, and climate emergency.

He highlighted the prime minister’s initiatives for global debt relief, recovery and return of stolen assets, climate finance, as well as calls for vaccine equity, and a fair international taxation regime.

The 15th Quadrennial Conference of the UNCTAD is being convened concurrently in Barbados and Geneva from 4-7 October 2021.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021