During
past 5-month, world economy observed a negative shock due to novel COVID-19
pandemic. This pandemic has no example in the modern world of internet and
globalization. Due to globalization and highly integrated economies of the modern
world, the effects of a pandemic on economies of countries are equally damaging
where the number of deaths or infections are much fewer. Regardless of the size of the economy or population, every country experienced a negative fluctuation in its
GDP. The important aspect of the impact of this novel coronavirus will be on the future world order and new equilibrium position of power structure around the
globe. Tourism dependent countries and oil-exporting countries are the worst
hit of this pandemic. Technology exporting countries like China will recover
soon after the control of the infectious disease. While Oxford and Pfizer are
expected to discover vaccine soon for treatment and spread control, many
experts around the world believe in one to two year of a slowdown in the global
economy.
Textile
and apparel business also suffers from the spread of novel coronavirus as
because almost everywhere the retail shops have to be closed. Accordingly,
fashion buyers postponed or cancelled so many garment orders. So, the garment
manufacturing countries especially Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and so on are
struggling to sustain. There are plenty of small and medium capacity factories are
about to shut down the business. However, after a couple of months, they began to
regain the garment orders as the retailers have started the business once again
though in limited scale. Many buyer countries already could control the corona
situation and opening retail shops. During the last 5 months, there has
already been a stock gap resulted in the bumped demand for fashion clothing.
Hence, buyers are now pushing to ship the previously work-in-progress goods as early
as possible to meet-up the bursting demand.
In
the meantime, China is spreading its hegemony in the region, on one side it has
started a war with Indians and on the other side, it is expanding trade relations
with Iran. This move can be seen as anti-American however, Chinese dependency
on Oil is still a big question mark on its anti-free trade agreements. Little
is known to us about the future power structure in the post-pandemic world, but it
seems certain that China is challenging American global hegemony.
Writing Courtesy:
Mr Ashar Awan
PhD candidate (Economics)
Erciyes University, Turkey