Since international and regional cooperation could suffer if the coronavirus outbreak continues for a long period of time, development agencies should work with their members to improve the process of making policies and implementation strategies in the areas of trade, partnership, and development aid – ADB reported in its recent blog.
“This is particularly true in Central and West Asia, which includes the countries of Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan” - Duc Tran wrote. In the Central Asia region which also includes Georgia, ADB forecasts that only Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan would have a positive gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2020.
As economies are getting poorer and borders remained closed to prevent COVID-19 transmission from abroad, the main issues of international and regional cooperation like trade, partnership, and, to some degree, foreign aid become difficult to manage.
“The coronavirus outbreak has proven to drain financial resources quickly and even instilled a sense of isolationism and protectionism across both developed and developing economies” – ADB noted.
According to ADB, these policies and strategies should consider: Incorporating more socio-political analysis in partnership strategies; adopting more national perspectives in regional economic development programs, and developing multiple strategies for scenarios of declining foreign aid.
According to ADB, Georgia is expected to contract by 5% in 2020 and grow by 4.5% in 2021.
