According to the World Health Organization, to date, Covid-19 cases around the world reached 101,927cases, while Covid-19’s death toll recorded 3,486, placing people into a state of terror, causing them to cancel or postpone most of their economic activities.
Planes include three Airbus 340 and four Boeing 777/200 models
The global economy faces fewer headwinds in 2013 compared to last year but is likely to experience a period of weak growth, according to experts.
By Robert Skidelsky LONDON: Nearly four years after the start of the global financial crisis, many are wondering why economic recovery is taking so long. Indeed, its sluggishness has confounded even the experts. According to the International Monetary Fund, the world economy should have grown by 4.4 percent in 2011, and should grow by 4.5 …
By Bjørn Lomborg COPENHAGEN: This decade has seen remarkable progress against humanity’s greatest challenges. Consider the declaration of victory over polio in India, which seemed impossible 10 years ago. January marked one year since the country’s last reported case. Or look at the strides made against malaria: over the past decade, the number of cases …
Lesley Wroughton / Reuters WASHINGTON: Tensions among some of the world’s leading economies have boiled up over a plan to raise new resources for the International Monetary Fund to contain the euro zone debt crisis, and a quest by emerging economies to win more say in the global lender. World financial leaders gathering in Washington …
By Harold James LONDON: The European Monetary Union, as many of its critics maintain, looks a lot like the pre-1913 gold standard, which imposed fixed exchange rates on extremely diverse economies. But is that resemblance as bad as it sounds, or as the euro’s critics insist? The appeal of the historic gold standard lay in an …
By Amanda Cooper / Reuters LONDON: Gold steadied on Wednesday, after rising for four days straight, as the intensifying euro zone debt crisis threatened to undermine the euro and offset any potential safe-haven demand for the metal. The euro rose on Wednesday but has come under pressure in the past week as the debt crisis has …
By Sanou Mbaye DAKAR: France is wrestling with a burden of debts and public deficits that led Standard & Poor’s recently to downgrade its credit rating. Even as the risk of recession looms, the country has been forced to implement a drastic austerity program. But France’s woes are also being felt far beyond its borders, sparking …
By Mohamed A. El-Erian NEWPORT BEACH: The United States has gone through an arduous period of intervention and rehabilitation since the global financial crisis in 2008 sent it to the economic equivalent of the emergency room. It moved from the intensive-care unit to the recovery room and, just recently, was discharged from the hospital. The question …
By AFP NEW DELHI: IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Tuesday the global economy has moved back from the “abyss” but that there were still serious weakness in the world financial system. Lagarde, visiting New Delhi for a two-day trip to attend a conference and meet leaders, said the world financial situation is not as grave …
By Nick Edwards and Koh Gui Qing / Reuters BEIJING: The global economy has stepped back from the brink of danger and signs of stabilization are emerging from the euro zone and the United States, but high debt levels in developed markets and rising oil prices are key risks ahead, the IMF said on Sunday. “The …
By Raghuram Rajan CHICAGO: Why did the household savings rate in the United States plummet before the Great Recession? Two of my colleagues at the University of Chicago, Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse, offer an intriguing answer: growing income inequality. Bertrand and Morse find that in the years before the crisis, in areas (usually states) where …
By Amir Makar CAIRO: In spite of facing some macro-economic hurdles, countries that were better prepared to engage in the World Bank’s crisis-related financial sector operations were less affected by the global financial crisis, according to a recent report by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG). IEG, which reports directly to the World Bank Group’s boards of …
By J. Bradford DeLong BERKELEY: Across the Euro-Atlantic world, recovery from the recession of 2008-2009 remains sluggish and halting, turning what was readily curable cyclical unemployment into structural unemployment. And what was a brief hiccup in the process of capital accumulation has turned into a prolonged investment shortfall, which means a lower capital stock and a …
By Zaida Espana and Dmitry Zhdannikov / Reuters LONDON: A jump in energy prices is jamming the slow-turning cogs of an economic recovery in the West, but that may be nothing compared to the economic shock an Israeli attack on Iran would cause. Oil rose to a 10-month high above $125 a barrel on Friday, prompting …
By Reuters MEXICO CITY: The International Monetary Fund flagged higher oil prices as a rising threat to the global economy on Friday, urging policymakers to keep a close eye on western tensions with Iran, which is facing punitive measures against its crude supplies. Looming US sanctions on Iran’s oil buyers, as well as an impending …
By Amir Makar CAIRO: Europe will remain weak for another year or a year-and-half, says the European Commission’s Heliodoro Temprano Arroyo, warning that Egypt and other southern Mediterranean countries will have to be prudent in managing their economies following a turbulent year “The situation remains difficult due to weaker than assumed euro area economies,” the head …
By Mohamed El-Erian NEWPORT BEACH: More than three years after the global financial crisis, the world still has a nasty plumbing problem. Credit pipes remain clogged, and only central banks are working to clear them. But their ability to do so is waning, posing yet another set of risks for Western economies blocked by too little …
