Arab region to witness economic boom in '22,23 — ESCWA

BEIRUT — The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) said Saturday that the Arab region would see an economic recovery in 2022 and 2023.

In the 2020-2021 survey of social and economic developments of the Arab region, the commission expected that the economic recovery started in 2021 would continue to help raise the gross domestic product (GDP) in the region by 3.7 in 2022 and by 3.6 percent in 2023.

The pace of recovery will differ from one country to another in accordance with the vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus (COVID-19), revenue of oil and tourism, and the volume of financial remittances as well as the flow of credit aid, it added.

It revealed that its expectations depended on two scenarios; the first one is related to the continued slow vaccination campaigns and the average oil prices of $60 per barrel. While the second scenario is pertaining to accelerating the vaccination process and increasing demand for oil with $80.

The poverty rate in the Arab region will decline from 27 percent out of the total population in 2021 to 26 percent in 2023, Ahmad Momy, head of the team that prepared the survey, said.

Despite the disparity of poverty amongst the Arab countries, it will remain one of the highest rates in the world, mainly in women and youth, the commission noted. However, the poverty rate is expected to reach 10.7 percent in 2023 compared with 11.8 percent in 2021, it pointed out.

The report shows that the GDPs of the countries affected by the conflicts are seen to hit 4.5 percent in 2022 and 6.9 percent in 2023. Due to the big economic and social challenges, the least growth in the Arab countries is expected to hit two percent in 2022 and 2.6 percent in 2023, the survey said.

Nevertheless, the spread of COVID-19 Omicron might slow growth to reach only 1.7 percent in 2022, it said. — KUNA