After the euphoria of recovery, the global economy enters a period of turmoil | Globalism

After the economic disaster of 2020, the recovery of the global economy has been good, but the health situation caused by the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19, the shortage of basic products and inflation darkens the outlook for 2022.

Multi speed recovery

From China to the United States, and from Europe to Africa, the pandemic crippled the world’s economies almost simultaneously in the spring of 2020.

Two years later and 5.3 million deaths, recovery is more widespread.

Rich countries have benefited from privileged access to vaccines: The US has already left behind trails of its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the eurozone could have done the same by the end of the year.

But the omicron variable and the health restrictions it caused will have an impact on sectors such as air transport, gastronomy and tourism.

“The fight against the virus is still a long way off“, confirm the British HSBC bank analysts, who consider that the economy is stillfar from normal.

For their part, poor countries do not have enough vaccines. Johns Hopkins University says that in sub-Saharan Africa, which is doomed according to the International Monetary Fund to a slower recovery, less than 4% of the population is vaccinated in countries such as Cameroon, Ethiopia or Uganda.

The International Monetary Fund recently warned that the recovery is slowing as risks mount even in China, the locomotive of global growth.

In China, consumption is struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels, there are concerns about the difficulties facing real estate giant Evergrande, and power outages are hurting business.

Inflation and scarcity

“The biggest surprise in 2021 was high inflation‘,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in their 2022 forecast.

This was driven by disruption of supply chains and shortages of products essential to international trade, such as semiconductors, as a result of the explosion in demand during and after the crisis.

But also because of the frustration of many actors in global trade, such as port unloading workers, truck drivers or supermarket cashiers who did not return to work after the closure and caused labor shortages.

Inflation also explains the rise in the prices of raw materials (wood, copper, steel) and energy (petrol, gas and electricity).

considered long agotemporary“By major central banks, the rate hike was finally recognized as temporarily lower by the US Treasury, which will accelerate rate hikes next year, even with the risk of slowing growth.

“The question is whether we are really out of the crisis.”said Roel Bitsma, professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam.

Currently, the IMF continues to forecast global growth of 4.9% for the next year.

Climate issue

It is increasingly difficult to balance economic growth with the climate issue, as COP26 findings have shown.

The agreement reached at the conference asks countries to increase their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2022, but it does not put the world on the right track to limit warming by “Much lessBy 2°C, as stipulated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“Short-term thinking is a common phenomenon, especially among politicians‘, regrets Roel Petzma, who advocates a carbon tax that is uniform across industries and is sufficiently dissuasive, which is far from the reality today.

Climate change and related natural disasters can also affect food prices.

Global prices are already near their 2011 highs, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Wheat is up nearly 40% in the year, dairy is up 15% and vegetable oils are up records.