The Changing Global Economic Landscape with COVID-19

Centre for Foundation Studies (CFS) of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Kampar Campus organised a webinar entitled “The Changing Global Economic Landscape with COVID-19”. The virtual talk was held on 8 January 2021 via the Zoom Platform, with the assistance of Division of Programme Promotion (DPP).

The webinar was conducted by Mr. Nawanithan a/l Thanimalay, a CFS Lecturer from the Department of Management and Accountancy. Mr. Nawanithan @ Nawin, who possessed a master’s degree in Economics from Universiti Utara Malaysia started off the webinar with the introduction of the COVID-19 pandemic and a little history of different types of pandemics that had affected the world before. He also discussed the vaccine development and how long it took to develop vaccine for each pandemic.

Essentially, Mr. Nawin highlighted 8 key areas involved and had been affected as well as transformed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These key areas include ‘World War III between China and USA/other European countries’ , ‘Robotic vs Labour Market’, ‘Bigger Debts and Increased Inequality’, ‘Global Best and Worst Performing Sectors of 2020’, ‘Rise of Mobile Gaming’, ‘Billionaire Wealth in General is Up’, ‘Big Consumer Shake-up’, and ‘Peak Globalisation’. Lastly, Mr. Nawin also mentioned how the intervention from different governments helped each countries’ economy to stay afloat.

In his talk, Mr. Nawin mentioned that for the first key area, ‘World War III’, China made a quick bounce back from the effects of COVID-19 and toppled other powerful countries through its financial might. He said that China is expected become the world’s biggest economy by 2028. In the area of ‘Robotic vs Labor Market’, companies are now opting for manufacturing robots as a result of the pandemic. The shortage of labour had caused them to seek other alternative and as a result, it helped to decrease manufacturing costs. This indirectly mitigates the global supply chain risks in the future and thus, gave a huge impact on labour force.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also made the gap even bigger between rich and poor countries. Even before the pandemic struck, countries around the world had already been hit with a lot of debt and this made it even more difficult for especially poor countries to provide government aid for its people during the pandemic. Mr. Nawin also highlighted some of the best and worst performing sectors in 2020. The best performing sectors include software app, internet retail, basic materials whereas the worst performing sectors were oil and gas, airlines and aerospace/defence.

The COVID-19 pandemic also witnessed how mobile gaming has become the world’s most popular form of entertainment. A total revenue of 165 billion US$ were recorded from mobile gaming, making it the biggest earning media sector, surpassing TV, movie and music. It was also noted that screen time increased 12 times more in 2020 during the pandemic. Apart from that, trade was also impacted and how the world is moving from globalisation to regionalisation. The pandemic has also forced companies to try to seek from local companies for sources rather than looking at other countries. Lastly, Mr. Nawin mentioned that the government intervention has greatly helped its people to survive. Developed countries like Japan, Italy and Germany spend 20% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) revenue to provide stimulus package for their people to survive while developing nations were only able to spend 10% of their GDP to help its people.

Last but not least, the webinar provided revelations and information of how different sectors were impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar proved to be a successful event as audience were intrigued and even asked questions at the end of the talk during the Q & A session. The virtual talk which kicked off at 4pm ended around an hour later at 5pm with a Q&A session. It is hoped that there will be more enriching programmes and talks like this conducted in the future that can help inform the public more.

Mr. Nawin sharing his thought on how the COVID-19 has changed the global economic landscape