The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, released 19 April, sees the Fund slash its forecast for 2022 global growth from 4.4% to 3.6% due to the direct and indirect impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Covid-related lockdowns in China.

“Beyond its immediate and tragic humanitarian impact, the war [in Ukraine] will slow economic growth and increase inflation. Overall economic risks have risen sharply, and policy tradeoffs have become even more challenging,” IMF research director Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas says. He adds that the “most affected” countries include commodity importers in the Mena region – including Tunisia and Egypt (MEES, 22 April). (CONTINUED - 443 WORDS)