Expert warns of more global gloom in 2023

The number of crises around the world has increased since the start of the century, warned Roel Beetsma, professor of macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam. He said that since World War II, there has not been such a complicated international situation. This year had been forecast as a bounce-back one for the world economy following the Covid pandemic. Instead, 2022 was marked by a new war, record inflation and climate-linked disasters. After the pandemic-induced economic crisis of 2020, consumer prices began to rise in 2021 as countries emerged from lockdowns or other restrictions. The coronavirus pandemic still remains a wildcard for the global economy, but the biggest crisis is climate change, which is happening in slow motion. Beetsma said it is not an acute crisis, but a very long-term crisis and will hit on an unprecedented scale.