The International Monetary Fund forecasts that the world economic output will contract by 4.4 per cent this year. However this is a better projection that the one it gave in June due to a partial and better-than-expected rebound in advanced economies from the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the Middle East and North Africa region remains at risk from the pandemic and a recovery next year is far from assured, according to the Fund.
It is hosting a live discussion titled ‘Coping with COVID-19: Challenges and Policy Priorities for the MENA Region and the Global Economy’.
Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, Jihad Azour, its Middle East and Central Asia director, Reza Moghadam, vice chairman of global capital markets at Morgan Stanley and Nasser Saidi, former Lebanon economy minister, will debate the outlook for the region and beyond. CNBC’s Hadley Gamble moderates.
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Read more here:
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IMF revises economic outlook on partial recovery and calls for multilateral co-operation
IMF forecasts 'partial and uneven recovery' as it warns of record debt levels
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
