African continental cooperation must be enhanced to counter COVID-19’s consequences on African countries’ economies, and contain the negative impact of the crisis, announced Egypt’s Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait.
Maait was speaking during a videoconference held on Monday with the members of the Committee of 15 Ministers of Finance (F15) to discuss COVID-19’s repercussions.
The videoconference included: Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Vera Songwe, Commissioner for Economic Affairs of the African Union Victor Harrison, Commissioner for Social Affairs of the African Union Amira el-Fadil, and Director of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention John Nkengasong.
The Finance Ministry issued a statement indicating that the meeting addressed the health, social, economic, and financial measures that member states have adopted to contain COVID-19.
The attendees also discussed the African strategy to contain and alleviate the economic impact of coronavirus and to take a united African stance in this regard at global gatherings, namely the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund scheduled to be held soon.
The meeting reviewed the required operational steps for activating resolutions issued by the African Union’s General Assembly Bureau to set an African fund for countering the pandemic’s harsh impacts.
The attendees agreed to convene periodically through teleconference to discuss anti-COVID-19 measures.
Meanwhile, Minister of Planning Hala al-Saeed announced that Egypt has developed several scenarios for how the crisis will pan out and others for the economy’s recovery when the virus spread has subsided.
The first scenario assumes that the crisis will end by June, while a second scenario assumes that the crisis will end by September. A final scenario predicts the crisis will come to an end at the end of this year.
Saeed believes Egypt will have positive growth rates in H2 of 2020, despite the negative outlook for other countries.
She pointed out that the issue of "globalization" will diminish and that countries will tend to follow a self-reliance policy, as imports have decreased. She pointed out that China is one of the first countries emerging from the crisis, and Beijing is expected to lead the economic growth.
