The entire world is suffering from the post-COVID-19 crisis, and governments are facing problems concerning the provision of satisfactory food and services to their citizens through food supply chain systems. During pandemics, it is difficult to handle the demands of consumers, to overcome food production problems due to lockdowns, work with minimum manpower, follow import and export trade policies, and avoid transportation disruptions. This study aims to analyze the behavior of food imports in Saudi Arabia and how this pandemic and its resulting precautionary measures have affected the food supply chain. We performed a statistical analysis and extracted descriptive measures prior to applying hybrid statistical hypothesis tests to study the behavior of the food chain. The paired samples t-test was used to study differences while the independent samples t-test was used to study differences in means at the level of each item and country, followed by the comparison of means test in order to determine the difference and whether it is increasing or decreasing. According to the results, Saudi Arabia experienced significant effects on the number of items shipped and the countries that supplied these items. The paired samples t-test showed a change in the behavior of importing activities by—47% for items and countries. The independent t-test revealed that 24 item groups and 86 countries reflected significant differences in the mean between the two periods. However, the impact on 41 other countries was almost negligible. In addition, the comparison of means test found that 68% of item groups were significantly reduced and 24% were increased, while only 4% of the items remained the same. From a country perspective, 65% of countries showed a noticeable decrease and 16% a significant increase, while 19% remained the same.
1 January 2021 in Journal of Interdisciplinary Mathematics
This review paper seeks to understand the impact of infectious diseases on international business. A comprehensive literature review (CLR) is done using Google scholar and Saudi Digital Library (SDL). Research, review articles presented and published in conference proceedings, magazines, journals, books and etc., were all taken into consideration. In total 40 documents were considered from 2016 to 2020 which are mainly related to the scope as sample size to write this review paper. The sample explains the types of infectious diseases, health challenges, treatment and supportive care, impact on international businesses, economic challenges and disruption management, economic development of the country, effected regions and countries impacted due to infectious diseases, Mathematical Modeling usage in infectious diseases and technologies to overcome the problem. This CLR could be considered as a helpful resource for scholars and researchers who are seeking to understand the critical perspectives on international business and financial burden on country economy because of spreading of infectious diseases.