UTAR Centre for Economic Studies (CES) and Centre for Accounting, Banking and Finance (CABF) parked under the Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised an online forum titled “Will Globalisation Survive the Covid-19 Pandemic?” on 1 September 2020 via Microsoft Teams.

Present to deliver the talk at the online forum were Prof Dr K. Kuperan Viswanathan from Universiti Utara Malaysia College of Arts and Sciences and Prof Dr Rokiah Alavi from International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences (KENMS). The online webinar was moderated by FBF Assoc Prof Dr Abdelhak Senadjki.

The objective of the forum was to understand how the pandemic will affect the globalisation and to evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy through an in-depth discussion.

During the webinar, the panellists stated issues involving globalisation and the pandemic, such as affected confidence in the leadership and the decrease in foreign direct investment not only in Malaysia, but also other countries. Besides, the panellists also shared the sudden upsurge in the digital field, showing how a lot of entrepreneurs have opted to e-commerce approach in order to survive in the pandemic.

According to them, although the market has ventured into the globalised trend, the trade regulatory institution is still at the national level due to the lack of infrastructure. And, as of now, the Covid-19 pandemic has immobilised the international travel and global supply chains which have resulted in a phenomenal rise in the government’s debt and losses for global enterprises.

Prof Kuperan, during his session, highlighted the positive side of globalisation in terms of providing resources and incomes. Apart from that, he also emphasised the outlook for the impact of the pandemic and the chances of risk it has dealt for growth, especially if one nation is too dependent heavily on another nation for resources, products, supply chain and many more.

On the other hand, Prof Rokiah continued the talk by stating that the globalisation period was operated normally until the unexpected pandemic came and restricted the movement of the economy. She also introduced the term "Slowbalisation", which was first coined by The Economist. Slowbalisation indicates the pace of the global economy via trading and finance, which is significantly slower during the pandemic period. Nevertheless, she continued encouraging the audience to be positive and optimistic during this pandemic period and to never lose hope that there will be a good medical solution for the Covid-19 in the future so that the operation of the global economy can resume as usual.

The webinar ended with a Q&A session. It received a total of 117 participants.