Indian pilot Bhavye Suneja captained Indonesian plane that crashed into sea

Washington, Mar 28: The world is in the face of a devastating impact due to the coronavirus pandemic and has clearly entered a recession, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, but projected a recovery next year.

"We have reassessed the prospects for growth for 2020 and 2021. It is now clear that we have entered a recession as bad or worse than in 2009. We do project recovery in 2021," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters at a news conference.

Georgieva was addressing the press after a meeting of governing body of the IMF, the International Monetary and Financial Committee. Representing 189 members, the body met virtually to discuss the unprecedented challenge posed to the world by COVID-19.

The key to recovery in 2021, she said, is only if the international community succeeds in containing the virus everywhere and prevent liquidity problems from becoming a solvency issue.

"The US is in recession, as is the rest of the advanced economies of the world. And in a big chunk of developed and emerging markets in developing economies. How severe? We are working now on our projections for 2020, Georgieva said in response to a question.

The new projections are expected in the next few weeks.

Stressing that while containment is the main reason for the economy to stand still and get into a recession, she said containment is very necessary to come out of this period and step in to recovery. "Until the virus is not contained, it would be very difficult to go to the lives we love."

"A key concern about a long-lasting impact of the sudden stop of the world economy is the risk of a wave of bankruptcies and layoffs that not only can undermine the recovery. But can erode the fabric of our societies," the IMF chief said.

To avoid this from happening, many countries have taken far-reaching measures to address the health crisis and to cushion its impact on the economy, both on the monetary and on the fiscal side, she said.

The IMF chief said 81 emergency financing requests, including 50 from lower-income countries, have been received. She said current estimate for the overall financial needs of emerging markets is 2.5 trillion dollars.

"We believe this is on the lower end. We do know that their own reserves and domestic resources will not be sufficient," she added.

The G-20, a day earlier, reported fiscal measures totalling some 5 trillion dollars or over 6 per cent of the global GDP.

Responding to another question, Georgieva said the IMF is projecting recession for 2020.

"We do expect it to be quite deep and we are very much urging countries to step up containment measures aggressively so we can shorten the duration of this period of time when the economy is in standstill," she said.

"And also to apply well-targeted measures, primarily focusing on the health system to absorb that enormous stress that comes from coronavirus. And on people, businesses and the financial system, I am very pleased to say that when we went through countries' responses, that sense of targeted fiscal measures is there and are also very impressive to see the size of these measures," she added.

"Countries are doing all they can on the fiscal and on the monetary front. We have heard from our members' very impressive decisions taken over the last days," the IMF chief said.

"We also want to caution that as we are responding now, we want to make the recession as possibly short and not too deep. We also want to think about what is going to follow the recovery and make sure that we are putting forward measures that can be supportive in this regard," she said.

May 6: The government on Tuesday said that the Food Corporation of India, the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains, has sufficient stocks in its godowns, even after meeting the requirement of additional wheat and rice provided free of cost during the lockdown period.

Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has given detailed information about the various steps taken by the government and the total stocks of food grains and pulses available with the government and sent to the states till now, an official statement said.

"FCI currently has 276.61 lakh tonnes rice and 353.49 lakh tonnes wheat. Hence a total of 630.10 lakh tonnes food grain stock is available," it said.

As against this, about 60 lakh tonnes of food grains is required for a month under the NFSA (National Food Security Act) and other welfare schemes.

Paswan said FCI stocks are comfortable even after fulfilling extra commitments during the lockdown.

Under the 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana', the Centre is providing 5 kg of free food grains per month to 80 crore ration card holders. This free of cost wheat and rice will be provided for three months. Besides, 1 kg of pulses will also be supplied per family.

This is over and above the normal quota of 5 kg of food grains provided per month per person to about 80 crore people under the food law.

The minister informed that since the lockdown, about 69.52 lakh tonnes of food grains have been transported through 2,483 rail rakes.

Apart from rail route, transportation was also done through roads and waterways. A total of 137.62 lakh tonnes has been transported.

During the lockdown, NGOs and social institutions running relief camps can purchase wheat and rice directly from FCI Depots at Open Market Sales Scheme (OMSS) rate.

The state governments can also purchase food grains directly from FCI. Under the OMSS, the rate of rice is fixed at Rs 22 per kg and wheat at Rs 21 per kg.

Under the 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana', for the next 3 months a total of 104.4 lakh tonnes rice and 15.6 lakh tonnes of wheat is required of which 59.50 lakh tonnes rice and 8.14 lakh tonnes wheat have been lifted by various states and UTs.

The Government of India is bearing 100 per cent financial burden of approximately Rs 46,000 crore under the scheme, the statement said.

For pulses, the total requirement for the next three months is 5.82 lakh tonnes.

So far, 2,20,727 tonnes of pulses have been dispatched, while 1,47,165 tonnes of pulses have reached the states/UTs and 47,490 tonnes have been delivered, it said.

London, Jul 10: India's Reliance will load its first cargo of Venezuelan crude in three months this week in exchange for diesel under a swap deal the parties say is permitted under the US sanctions regime on the Latin American country, according to a Reliance source and a shipping document from state oil firm PDVSA.

Washington has exempted some Venezuelan oil trade from sanctions when transactions are in exchange for fuel and food or to repay debts rather than for cash. But that trade slowed as the US tightened restrictions and refiners, shippers and insurers have been steering clear of Venezuela to avoid any risk they may fall foul of sanctions.

Washington aims to deprive Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro of his main source of revenue with the sanctions, which have driven Venezuelan oil exports to their lowest level since the 1940s.

Reliance gave the US State Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice of the diesel swap and received word back that the policies that allowed the transaction were still in place, the Reliance source told Reuters.

Reliance has previously said that its supplies of fuel to PDVSA in exchange for crude were permitted under sanctions.

An oil tanker named Commodore would load the cargo of crude in Venezuela and ship it to India, the tanker's manager NGM Energy said.

"All details of the transaction and transportation were shared with US authorities, who confirmed that the U.S. policy authorizing such transactions remained in place," NGM Energy said in a statement to Reuters.

"The shipment is made in connection with the humanitarian exchange of oil for diesel fuel."

The Commodore is loading a 1.9-million barrel cargo of crude for Reliance at Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, according to an internal PDVSA cargo schedule seen by Reuters.

The Liberian-flagged Commodore was at the Jose Terminal on Thursday, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The US State Department, Treasury's enforcement arm OFAC, and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reliance has a swap deal to provide diesel to Venezuela in exchange for fuel but has not received a cargo of crude since April. Sources at Indian refiners told Reuters earlier this year they planned to wind down their purchases of Venezuelan oil to avoid any problems with supply due to sanctions.

Other long-time customers of PDVSA, including Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, have continued taking cargoes of Venezuelan crude this year under permission granted by the US Treasury Department to exchange the oil for diesel supply as part of debt repayment deals, according to sources from the companies.

NGM Energy also manages the Voyager I tanker, which the United States removed from its list of sanctioned vessels last week after NGM and the ship's owner Sanibel Shiptrade said they would increase measures to ensure vessels complied with international sanctions.

"Last month, NGM Energy SA adopted a firm policy of not allowing vessels under its commercial management to trade to Venezuela, or to carry Venezuelan petroleum cargoes, absent US government authorization," NGM said.

"NGM continues to stand by that pledge."