While America's 651 billionaires have increased their net worth by
30% to $4 trillion, a quarter of a billion people in developing countries could
face absolute poverty
The coronavirus
has crippled the world economy. Global GDP suffered its sharpest drop since the
end of the second world war in 2020, millions were unemployed or furloughed,
and governments pumped trillions of dollars into their economies to prevent
greater damage.
Nevertheless, a
2021 recovery is very uncertain. China’s economy is growing strongly again, but
many of the world’s richest nations may not fully rebound until 2022 at the
earliest.
Inequality is also
rampant. While America’s 651 billionaires have increased their net worth by 30%
to US$4 trillion, a quarter of a billion people in developing countries could
face absolute poverty, and up to half the global workforce may have lost their
livelihoods.
Advantage Asia
The speed at which
the pandemic can be contained will have a huge bearing on how the world
economy performs. In the race between new virulent strains of the virus and
the vaccine roll-out, early victory is by no means assured. Even rich countries
that have secured most of the available vaccines may fail to inoculate enough
people to provide herd immunity until the end of 2021. In developing countries,
where vaccines will generally be scarce, the virus is expected to spread
further.
The big winners
are likely to be countries like China and South Korea that succeeded in
suppressing COVID-19
early. China’s economy is projected to grow in 2021 by 8%, over twice that of
the most successful western countries even before the pandemic.
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