Trading Together : Reviving Middle East and North Africa Regional Integration in the Post-COVID Era (English)

• 全文链接

共同贸易：在后COVID时代恢复中东和北非区域一体化

关键词：

来源：

World Bank

全文链接：

//agri.nais.net.cn/topic/downloadFile/1b021e74-cfb2-477c-b4c0-7746e5179786

来源地址：

资源所属：

一带一路农业专题

类型：

行业报告

语种：

英语

原文发布日期：

2020-10-01

摘要：

The combination of a Covid-19 pandemic and a collapse in oil prices has affected all aspects of the economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region’s economies are projected to contract by 5.2 percent in 2020, which is 4.1 percentage points below the forecast in April 2020, and 7.8 percentage points worse than that of October 2019, reflecting an increasingly pessimistic outlook for the regional economy. The region is expected to recover only partially in 2021. The outlook for MENA’s current account and fiscal balances also deteriorated sharply. Driven largely by lower oil export revenue, a drop in fiscal revenue, and the large increase in fiscal expenditure required to respond to the health crisis, the region’s current account and fiscal balances in 2020 are forecast at -4.8 percent and -10.1 percent of GDP respectively, much worse than the forecasts in October 2019. Public debt is projected to rise significantly in the next few years, from about 45 percent of GDP in 2019 to 58 percent in 2022. In dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, the top priority is responding to the health crisis while aiming to preserve consumption and production capabilities. If financially feasible, countries should postpone fiscal consolidation until recovery is well underway. Reallocating spending to deal with the immediate impacts of the crisis and making such spending more efficient, for example, by proactively reducing leakages to ensure relief measures reach the intended beneficiaries can help create fiscal space. In the medium run, there is a strong need to boost productivity to restore growth and stabilize the debt. A powerful way to do that would be to pursue profound institutional reforms that would reshape the role of the state, promote fair competition, accelerate the adoption digital technology, and pursue regional integration, which is the focus of this report.