Russia issues new warning against Finland and Sweden joining NATO
UKraine’s economic output is likely to decline by a staggering 45.1 percent this year as Russia’s invasion has shut down companies, reduced exports and made economic activity impossible in large parts of the country, the World Bank said.
The World Bank also predicts that Russia’s GDP output in 2022 will fall by 11.2 percent due to punitive financial sanctions imposed by the United States and its Western allies against Russia’s banks, state-owned enterprises and other institutions.
The World Bank’s economic update “War in the Region” stated that the Eastern European region – which includes Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova – is expected to show a GDP decline of 30.7 percent this year, due to shocks from the war and trade disruptions.
Growth in 2022 in the Central Europe region – which includes Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Romania – will be reduced to 3.5 percent from 4.7 percent previously due to the influx of refugees, higher commodity prices and declining confidence that hurt demand.
For Ukraine, the World Bank report estimates that more than half of the country’s operations are closed, while others operate far below normal capacity. The closure of Black Sea shipping from Ukraine has stopped about 90 percent of the country’s grain exports and half of its total exports.
The World Bank said the war had made economic activity impossible in many areas and disrupted agricultural planting and harvesting.
Estimates of infrastructure damage exceeding $ 100 billion in early March – about two-thirds of Ukraine’s GDP in 2019 – are far out of date “as the war has raged and caused further damage”.