BAKU, Azerbaijan. Apr. 10
Trend:
Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbay Jeenbekov made a number of proposals to consolidate efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus and its consequences, Trend reports with reference to the press office of Kyrgyz president.
Jeenbekov introduced the proposals at the Extraordinary Summit of the Turkic Council through video conferencing.
He said that border closure negatively affected the provision of protective equipment to the country’s population and doctors.
“Border restrictions create difficulties for the timely implementation of country’s social obligations. The forecasts said that the revenue of country’s budget may decrease by 20 percent as a result of the coronavirus spread. In this regard, I propose reducing the barriers at the borders for the supply of humanitarian cargo, providing the population with goods, medicine and medical equipment. Lists of the goods required for food safety must be prepared, based on which a unified register of goods of the Turkic Council must be developed. The algorithm for the operational exchange of information on the passage of freight transport across borders and on emerging issues must be approved,” he said.
Jeenbekov also emphasized the need to develop mechanisms to reduce prices for the export of the above-mentioned goods between the member countries of the Turkic Council, to facilitate the mechanisms of administrative and customs duties on their delivery, and to create an Anti-Crisis Fund of the Turkic Council.
The Extraordinary Summit of the Turkic Council was convened at the initiative of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who chairs the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking countries to discuss the steps to combat coronavirus.
The outbreak of the coronavirus began in the Chinese city of Wuhan (an international transport hub), at a fish market in late December 2019. The number of people killed by the disease has exceeded 95,000. Over 1.6 million people have been confirmed as infected. Meanwhile, over 355,000 people have reportedly recovered.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.