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(International Monetary) expects an improvement in the economies of the oil and gas exporting countries in the region in 2022

27-04-2022

The International Monetary Fund revealed today, Wednesday, its expectations that the economies of oil and gas exporting countries in the Middle East and North Africa will improve during the current year 2022, compared to “major challenges” that the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia will face as a result of receiving a direct “shock” of the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. The IMF said in a report entitled "Regional Economic Prospects in the Middle East and North Africa: April 2022" that the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia "have further diverged between the expected recovery prospects for countries in the Middle East and Central Asia." In this context, he referred to the improvement of the "expected prospects for the countries of the Middle East and North Africa exporting oil and gas, while the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia face prospects fraught with great challenges due to their relations with Russia and Ukraine." According to the report, the IMF expects the Middle East and North Africa region to achieve a growth of 5 percent this year, which remains good despite its decline compared to the growth of 5.8 percent it achieved last year, when compared with the contraction of growth in the region by 3.3 in 2020, which He witnessed the emergence and spread of the Corona Virus Pandemic - Covid 19. He also expected a decrease in the inflation rate in the region to reach 13.9 percent compared to last year, when it reached 14.8 percent, which was a significant increase compared to its pre-pandemic level of 11.1 percent. The data contained in the report highlights the significant difference in growth expectations between the Middle East and North Africa on the one hand, and the Caucasus and Central Asia on the other, as the latter is expected to achieve a growth of 2.6 percent, down from last year, which witnessed a growth of 5.6 percent compared to the year of the outbreak of the pandemic. It recorded an economic contraction of 2.1 percent, which indicates the severity of the impact of the situation in Russia and Ukraine on the economies of the region. With regard to the inflation rate in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the International Monetary Fund expected it to reach 10.7 percent this year, an upward rise compared to 9.2 percent last year and 7.5 percent the previous year. The World Bank Group published a report two weeks ago in which it expected the slowdown in economic growth in South Asia due to the effects of the Russian military operation in Ukraine and the continuing economic challenges, more than its previous expectations. The group expected growth in the region to record 6.6% in 2022 and 6.3% in 2023, noting that this represents a decrease of one percentage point from last January's expectations.