ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday projected economic growth of up to 2.5 percent for fiscal year 2020-21 following the news that an effective coronavirus vaccine has been developed.
The central bank forecast that the growth would be between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent, as compared with the negative 0.4 percent growth recorded during the previous fiscal year.
“The economy is poised to resume the trajectory of recovery on which it had embarked prior to the COVID-19 outbreak,” SBP said in its annual report. "While much will depend on the future global trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are reasons for optimism, including recent encouraging news on the vaccine front."
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said on Wednesday that final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine show it was 95 percent effective, adding it had the required two-months of safety data and would apply for emergency US authorization within days.
Also last week, Dr. Malik Mohammad Safi, director general for health at the Ministry of National Health Services, told Arab News that the Pakistani government has already allocated initial funding of $150 million to purchase a COVID-19 vaccine directly from the international market by the second quarter of the next calendar year to begin immunizing its population of 220 million people.
