{"id":36896,"date":"2026-06-12T09:56:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=36896"},"modified":"2026-06-12T09:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:56:35","slug":"middle-east-tensions-cloud-economic-outlook","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/middle-east-tensions-cloud-economic-outlook\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East tensions cloud economic outlook"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The conflict in the Middle East is expected to slow global growth to the lowest rate since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic amid higher energy prices, steeper inflation, and increased borrowing costs.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">This is according to the World Bank Group&#8217;s latest Global Economic Prospects report.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">\nAccording to the World Bank, global growth is forecast to slow to 2.5% in 2026, down from 2.9% in 2025.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Forecasts for two-thirds of economies have been downgraded relative to January of this year.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Global growth is expected to improve to 2.8% in 2027 but will remain at 0.4% point below the average during the 2010s.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, weak growth in developing economies has stalled progress toward advanced-economy income levels.<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">By 2028, developing economies other than China and India will have collectively experienced nearly a decade of no progress on narrowing their per capita income gap with advanced economies, the report finds.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Ayhan Kose, Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group at World Bank says the Middle East conflict between Iran, Israel and the US comes during a challenging period.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Channel Africa&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33640,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-36896","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Middle East conflict to slow global growth","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36897,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36896\/revisions\/36897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}