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% 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.
Cite
Arezki, Rabah, Blanca Moreno-Dodson, Rachel Yuting Fan, Romeo Gansey, Ha Nguyen, Minh Cong Nguyen, Lili Mottaghi, Constantin Tsakas, and Christina A. Wood. 2020. “Trading Together: Reviving Middle East and North Africa Regional Integration in the Post-COVID Era.” World Bank, MENA Economic Update (October 2020).