Impact of COVID-19 on Commonwealth Countries' Exports and Future Growth Opportunities

The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted Commonwealth countries' exports, leading to a reduction in trade flows and GDP. Fuels are the most exported commodity, and their demand has been majorly affected. However, agricultural goods and mineral ores were less impacted due to high demand. To ensure future growth, Commonwealth countries need to focus on increasing the size of the workforce and productivity growth. Advanced technology and innovation are crucial for growth.

a. The impact of COVID-19 on commonwealth countries global and intra commonwealth goods and services exports
 Due to pandemic commonwealth countries
have suffered a lot as the virus has spread all
across the globe. It has affect virtually all
countries, their businesses, goods and services
production, imports and exports and many
more.
 People were not allowed to roam here and
there without any genuine reason. There were
travel restrictions, restrictions on port,
international border and people have to follow
rules and regulations provided by them (Escaith
and et.al., 2020).
 The year 2020 was the worst year for many
people as this has impacted their way of living,
many of them have lost jobs and loved ones.
 In addition to this, the covid-19 has affected
trade flows along both the demand and supply
channels. In the year 2020, global trade of
goods and services flows collapsed which has
affected the level of development and trade
structure as well.
 Commonwealth countries majorly work such as
exports of food products, fuels, metals and raw
materials, minerals.
 The lock-down had a negative effect on 54
commonwealth countries also, they have face
heavy recession in total 45 economies.
 .Population of Commonwealth countries have heavy reliance on exports and impacted people income
as many people were facing low income issues.
 After corona virus lock-down all 54 countries has been impacted out of which 48 are at different
economic development level.
 It includes east coast of new Zealand to the western parts of the America. There almost 1 million deaths
have been recorded in the year 2021 month of march. Almost 20 million infected patients were
recorded. Due to this there was a severe drop in the trade flows of the commonwealth and intra
commonwealth trade flows.
 As pre pandemic everything was going smooth, growth trends were going high but during pandemic
sudden fall in growth and development of countries has been noted (Khorana, Martínez-Zarzoso and
Ali, 2021).
 There were heavy fall in the trading activities and production activities pertaining to pandemic.
However, commonwealth countries are still facing many issues such as unemployment, trade flows,
GDP issue, exports.

 Out of all the commodity exports by commonwealth countries fuels are
the most exported.
 Due to covid-19 pandemic, demand for such commodity have been
majorly affected in these countries.
 However, prices of commodity such as mineral ores and agricultural
goods were relatively less impacted as their were high demand of
agricultural products at that time, this creates a positive impact during
that time.
 There were reduction in demand and supply of commodity such as raw
material, high price of goods such as minerals. The companies were
under pressure to work effectively during that time and keep the price
high.
 Nevertheless, decrease in demand, along with issues associated with
exporting, business operations and production activities (Covid-19 and
commonwealth countries, 2022).
 Due to this, loss of export around 125 billion have been noted in the
year 2020. Due to Covid-19, there was highly adverse effect on intra-
commonwealth as compared with global experts because many of the
intra-commonwealth traders in the countries such as South Africa,
Singapore and UK- have experiences a fall in demand and supply and
other economic contractions.
 With the help of cost advantages, the commonwealth countries can
enhance trading activities with each other.
 It is essential for them to so focus on trade and develop a new policies
and economic situation by following commonwealth free trade
agreement

b. Identifying the sources of future growth including from the commonwealth advantage
As we all know that growth always matters a lot, both for raising the living standards
of people and maintain fiscal stabilization. It is essential to maintain economic
growth which helps the commonwealth countries while doing business activities.
Increase in the size of the workforce- faster growth in increase in the size of the
workforce expands the working capacity of the companies in the commonwealth
countries which will provide benefit to overall size of the economy.
 As it can enhance and strengths fiscal conditions which can also improve the
GDP of the economy. When there is an increase in the overall size of the
economy but only strong productivity growth can enhance the per capital
income and gross domestic product (Cory, 2020).
 With the increase in the size of workforce, the company will be able to grasp
the opportunity and deal with exports and imports related issues too.
 They can work effectively on the demand and supply of minerals, fuels and
materials. An economy recovering is necessary to avoid recession and to
achieve this at high rates.
 Companies in the commonwealth is focusing on the increase in demand for
recruitment process. By hiring unemployed workers with skills and
knowledge they can deal with recession. This can increase the productive
capacity of them.
 Once there is a reduction in unemployment and proper utilization of
resources is done then countries can work back to normal.
 However, growth of the economy is constrained by growth in the future in
its ability to supply commodities and services.
Productivity growth- it is the most important part of future growth of
country as it allows people to achieve a higher material standard of living. By
this people can work effectively without having to work more hours and can
easily enjoy the same material living standard while spending less time in the
work.
As we all know that GDP measure the market value of commodity
which is produced in the country, but it is essential to capture the market
activity of company by measuring productivity of each employee (Jiang, Liu
and Zhang, 2022). However, an excessive use of economic growth can
cause the quality and quantity of the production factors.
On the other side, economic decline may be occurred if the quality of
the factors of production falls down and quantity of those factors also get
influences. However, slowdown in the productivity and investment can
impact the growth of the future. Advanced technology and innovation is the
major spur to growth of productivity.