Economies in the Middle East and North Africa face a 'shadow of uncertainty' from ongoing tensions in the region, a senior IMF official told AFP on Thursday.
The IMF has pared back its economic growth outlook for the Middle East and North Africa, senior Fund official Jihad Azour says. Photo: Mandel NGAN / AFP"We are in a context where the overall outlook is cast into shadows," the International Monetary Fund's director for the Middle East and Central Asia department, Jihad Azour, said in an interview in Washington.
The Fund now expects growth in MENA of 2.7 percent this year -- 0.2 percentage points below its January forecast -- before picking up again next year, the IMF said in its regional economic outlook report published Thursday. The Fund cannot lend to the West Bank and Gaza because it is not an IMF member country. However, it has provided the Palestinian Authority and the central bank with technical assistance during the current conflict, Azour said.
The Egyptian economy has been particularly badly hit by the recent Huthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, which caused trade through the Egypt-run Suez Canal to more than halve -- depriving the country of a key source of foreign exchange.
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