Congratulations to both China and Indonesia, their people and leaders on the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

The enormity of the challenges facing all of us today, East and West, advanced economies and emerging and developing economies alike, necessitates stronger cooperation in all spheres of life. Regaining cooperative momentum rather than succumbing to the instinct of beggar-thy-neighbor policies will determine how far and how quickly we can return to a better shared sustainable growth. Given the rising knowledge and spatial complexities in which we all live, no government and no country will ever again be able to sustainably prosper alone.

The coronavirus pandemic has made and will continue to make life very difficult for billions of citizens. Its transmission has not been brought under control. As of Nov. 24, COVID-19 had infected over 58.7 million people and killed nearly 1.4 million of them. The number of new cases has risen steeply in recent days and some countries are struggling with a feared relapse.

On the economic front we are projected to lose almost 5 percent of the world’s 2019 output. The loss could even be greater than 10 percent in some countries. Everywhere investment will fall even more severely, setting the limit as to how far we can grow in the near future.

Foreign direct investment (FDI), which has served for many economies as an engine of technology acquisition over the years, may nosedive by 40 percent. The same trend is occurring in portfolio investment.

Trade in goods is projected to decline by nearly 10 percent this year, depriving our economies of the forces that inspire us to divide tasks and, thereby perfect them continuously or even reinvent them with great positive impacts on our income and wealth, or prosperity in short.

The equivalence of hundreds of millions of jobs have disappeared with the social restrictions and reduced mobility. Unknown but certainly huge numbers of small and medium businesses that happen to dwell overwhelmingly in contact-intensive industries have ceased operation or even gone out of business.

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