Brunei Darussalam in 2022: Towards Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery, Diversification and Sustainability

Summary

Brunei Darussalam, through its national vision, the Wawasan 2035, aspires to be among the world's top ten countries by 2035, with high income per capita and high quality of life, a well-educated and highly skilled workforce, and a dynamic and sustainable economy. As a high-income welfare state, Brunei provides its citizens free healthcare and education, low-cost housing, subsidized land purchases, and highly subsidized necessities like food, water, fuel and electricity. The country has persistently scored high on the human development index (HDI), along with HDI sub-dimensions of long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living—it is considered a very high human development country, ranking 51st in 2021. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 Sustainable Development Goals Report of the United Nations (UN) highlighted Brunei's achievements in many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in the areas of health and well-being, decent work and economic growth, and sustainability, among others.

Brunei has been managing the COVID-19 pandemic with a whole-of-nation and whole-of-government approach that aimed to effectively minimize socioeconomic disruptions by maintaining the well-being of the public, protecting jobs and providing support for individuals, supporting and assisting businesses, and promoting the national vaccination programme.

With these decisive interventions, the first wave of COVID-19, which started in March 2020, was successfully contained. However, the highly contagious second-wave infections caused by the Delta variant from August to December 2021, and the third wave caused by the Omicron variant from January to May 2022, hit Brunei hard with soaring daily cases that only peaked in March 2022. Since then, the infections have gradually slowed down, notwithstanding the fourth wave (BA.4 and BA.5 variants) that has been taking place since June 2022. With ninety-seven per cent of its population fully vaccinated, Brunei entered the endemic phase beginning in June 2022 as the country gradually lifted its domestic restrictions and completely lifted travel restrictions by land, sea and air on 15 September 2022. While these new measures have propelled an upsurge in socio-economic activities, inevitable inflationary pressures also came into play as global food prices have risen rapidly because of supply disruptions caused by the Russian-Ukraine war.