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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 13 Oct 202613 Oct 2026<\/p>\n
The economy of the Middle East and Central Asia is set to shrink in 2026 amid the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran, with countries such as Kuwait and Qatar facing double-digit contractions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<\/p>\n
The region\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP)\u00a0is forecast to contract by 0.3 percent this year,\u00a0a sharp downgrade from\u00a0the\u00a01.9 percent expansion\u00a0projected\u00a0in April, the IMF said in its latest\u00a0economic outlook on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
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The\u00a0IMF\u00a0cited the prolonged disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of global oil supplies in peacetime, for the downgraded outlook.<\/p>\n
Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar are forecast to have the most severe economic contractions, with their GDPs expected to shrink by 16.7 percent, 16 percent and 15.6 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n
Bahrain\u2019s GDP is forecast to contract by 11.3 percent, while Iran\u2019s economy is projected to shrink by 7.6 percent.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia, which has partially offset the hit to its energy sector by boosting oil exports through the East-West pipeline, is projected to record negative growth of 3.3 percent.<\/p>\n
Kyrgyzstan is expected to have the strongest growth in the region, with GDP forecast to expand 9 percent.<\/p>\n
The Middle East and Central Asia is the only region that is expected to experience negative growth in 2026.<\/p>\n
Emerging and developing Asia\u2019s GDP is forecast to grow 5.1 percent, while the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to expand 4.5 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n
The United States and China, the world\u2019s two largest economies, are forecast to register growth of 2.3 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, while the eurozone\u2019s GDP is estimated to grow 1.1 percent.<\/p>\n
The IMF\u00a0said it expected\u00a0global GDP to grow 3.1 percent, up\u00a0from\u00a03\u00a0percent in its\u00a0previous\u00a0outlook.<\/p>\n
The Washington, DC-based institution said while economic activity had proved resilient this year, the global economy faced multiple risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurther escalation in conflicts, a reassessment of expectations surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), renewed trade tensions, and fiscal vulnerabilities could weaken growth,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the upside, stronger momentum in AI investment and productivity gains from AI or a sustained easing of geopolitical and trade tensions could strengthen growth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar face double-digit declines in GDP amid the fallout from the US-Israel war on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[190,2300,138,338,219,2024,23711,5107,111,43,139,69,1431],"class_list":["post-629191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-africa","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-latin-america","tag-middle-east","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}