Need for an international financial architecture to fight COVID-19 pandemic: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

There is a need for an international financial architecture to fight the COVID-19 pandemic across the world, says Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. While participating in the 36^th Annual G30 International Banking Seminar virtually, she highlighted the importance of keeping supply chains open for vaccine raw materials.

According to the Finance Ministry, Sitharaman stressed on focused mobilization and equitable allocation of finances and tech solutions to successfully harness the global common good of climate and pandemic security.

Moreover, the minister pointed out the need of an international financial architecture to fight the COVID-19 pandemic across the world and supported the need of new financial instruments to focus and press forward green initiatives. Sitharaman underlined the need for the World Health Organization (WHO) to be strengthened for a more effective response to new challenges, and emphasized the need to keep open supply chains for vaccine raw materials.

Recently, India has been highlighting the importance of enhancing the resilience of supply chains and greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, especially after the pandemic caused disruptions in the existing supply chains. It should be noted that lockdown measures in 2020 and during the second wave of COVID-19 infections disrupted supply chains for an already overburdened Indian logistics sector.

Vaccine manufacturing takes place across multiple sites worldwide, so problems in a single country will not halt production altogether. However, it will affect scale and timelines, which are critical when attempting to vaccinate the entire global population. It should be noted that Serum Institute of India has had difficulty obtaining enough raw materials for vaccine production. In March, the pharma company sought Indian government’s intervention in helping import raw materials from the US, and in April, it publicly called for the United States to lift its embargo on raw material exports.

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India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines overall, suspended exports of COVID-19 vaccines in April 2021 to focus on inoculating its own population following a sudden spike in infections.