In the throes of Lockdown 2.0.

THE first five-week lockdown between April 1 and May 9 had a devastating impact on trade and industry. `Covid-19 took its toll during those days when the manufacturing plants of 80 listed companies came to a grinding halt, says a market watcher.

He had, however, comforting words for the impact of the `smart (or partial) lockdown` that was clamped in Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and other cities after the government said it was worried about an exponential spread of the pandemic, which could take the number of cases from 172,000 to 1.2 million by early August.

On June 18, the authorities identified and sealed `hotspots` in Karachi for two weeks. Faisal Shaji, strategist at Standard Capital Securities, lamented that the impact of the first lockdown was seen in the recently released large-scale manufacturing (LSM) numbers for April, which show a contraction of over one-third from a year ago. Almost all major manufacturing sectors posted negative growth. The textile sector, a top contributing segment to the big industry output, fell 64.2pc year-on-year.

Mr Shaji said the automobile sector and auto vendors suffered sales declines in April. The lockdown also dented textile exporters as many industries had to cut jobs to survive the financial stress.

`In the second lockdown, the impact of economic stress will remain. However, exports from Lahore and Karachi picked up in June and orders from Europe are being regained in the textile sector after many European countries lifted their lockdowns.

This may reboot many supplier industries,` he said.

But nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes. Most industrialists and market men pushed the worry to the back of their minds. They admitted that more losses were imminent, but the quantum was difficult to put in numbers. They also admitted that the government was caught between a rock and a hard place. An industrialist said he believed the general public was not prepared to follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) in respect of avoiding crowded places and keeping safe distance.

`The authorities may have to put fear in the minds of non-compliant crowds through harsh punishments, he said.

Meanwhile, during the previous lockdown, hundreds of jobs were lost with endless squabbles between the government and entrepreneurs the former insisting that workers be paid wages despite factory closures and the latter saying no work, no pay.

Majyd Aziz, former president of the Employers Federation of...