Alexander Karavaev: G20 needs to curb global panic

The G20 and other participants in tomorrow’s virtual summit will need to agree on the economic measures to help stop the collapse of national economies by at least the middle of the fourth quarter, researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Karavaev told Vestnik Kavkaza, speaking about the agenda of the summit, initiated by Saudi Arabia in connection with the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy.

First of all, he drew attention to the revolutionary nature of the summit format. “The summit in the format of a videoconference is a historical phenomenon. At this summit, the G20 countries and other participants will need to work out measures that can smooth out the collapse of economies and find points for their stabilization by October-November,” the economist stressed.

"In fact, the G20 faces two main issues, and the first of them is how to curb international panic. In particular, we can already say that it makes sense to revise the standard protocol for responding to epidemics and pandemics," the expert pointed out.

“In my opinion, a decision can be made not to introduce full quarantines longer than 2 weeks with the following scheme: 2 weeks of quarantine - 2 weeks of work - then, if necessary, the cycle is repeated. It may be decided to form a stabilization fund against the effects of the pandemic on the basis of WHO," Alexander Karavaev expects.

"The second key question is what sectors and spheres of the economy should be helped the most? Financial and food reserves, communications between industrial segments and the growth of military purchases will play a major role," a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the RAS predicts.

“If we talk about Russia's position at this summit, then we have interesting proposals on all these topics, especially for the Persian Gulf countries, India and Africa,” Alexander Karavaev concluded.