DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The International Monetary Fund downgraded its outlook for Middle East and Central Asian economic recovery, predicting a 4.1% contraction for the region as a whole — 1.3 percentage points worse than its previous assessment in April — in its latest regional outlook report released Monday.
Jihad Azour, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, noted a large disparity in economic loss between oil importing and exporting countries as the region has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic and a plunge in oil prices.
“Combined together, those two shocks led to a sharp decline in economic activity that is different between oil exporting and oil importing countries,” Azour told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble via video call on Sunday. “On average, we will see growth going negative by 6.6% for oil exporting countries, and negative growth of 1% for all importing countries,” he said, adding that there will be differences between the countries within each group.
To read the full article, click here