Corona: An Industry?

The heading of this article I know will thwart my reader’s perception. We all are now quite familiar about how the ongoing pandemic has become a big reason behind the collapse of firms, stalling of productions and thereby hitting hard to the employment scenario of the world. No silver lining is visible yet. Amid this near collapse of livelihood all leading elected governments across globe are in tug of war with the geo-political tensions. The defence industry and its allocations very shockingly are getting best attention by the best leaders. What is of highest need now? This basic question leaves us in a lurch.

Pix by Amit K Sikder

Industry since the beginning of its journey has made the concept of ‘division of labour’ more meaningful to livelihood. With the diversified need of human civilisation more and more specialisation of production styles have validated the concept to a newer dimension and given rise to a prominent concept of class hierarchy in industry, widened the domain of employment to a new level. And for long the world and its people are enjoying the industrial fruit. It has contributed to the growth of civilisation remarkably and made available the best comfort to livelihood. But after a certain point of time an aggressive practice of it has started to hit us adversely like by excreting health hazards, pollutions etc. A negotiable trade off between good and bad has always been a cause of concern and so countries gather together time to time under banner of ‘climate summit’ every year. To make a best consensus on it the globe unites and tries to find the best.

All apart excessive production of goods and services meanwhile has become a reason of a fierce competition among countries and beyond WTO’s existence and intervention an unwanted tariff war in between countries sometimes leave the whole economic system to an unexpected low. Though it is not going to serve anybody well. The cross-border politics thus often mislead the trajectory of industrial growth which was never intended at all.

With all these pros and cons industry today is in a critical fall out which never being perceived. The pandemic now has fully stalled it and how long it would lust can’t be predicted. The medical research is hurriedly trying to find out a solution. It is almost seven to eight months over the world is bearing the pain of quarantined life with an unending insecurity. It is such an illusory phase of life we are bound to bear the cost hygiene and allocating a portion of money to buy masks, sanitizer, disinfectants etc. The gradual fall of per capita income and bearing on an extra brunt of hygiene cost altogether hitting the normal demand for goods and services. This leaves scope a minimal for a lion share of firms in the field. Only a few big players are now steady.

So far we have seen the aspect of insecurity in most cases it has opened up scope in different way which may be either by recycling of waste or launching Green bond. Now the uncertainty of the pandemic has made a ‘bubble’ industry and ruthlessly guiding the stratification of class in society not the division of labour. We don’t know how long it would lust but in a radical way Corona is becoming a potential industry. Now to step into the industry can we think of launching a ‘Corona’ Bond?