MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The global economic growth in 2020 is projected to fall by 1.5 percent as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the OPEC said in a monthly report on Thursday.
"Following global economic growth of 2.9% in 2019, the world economy is forecast to face a severe recession in 2020, declining by 1.5%. Despite tender signs of improvement at the beginning of the year, expectations for global economic growth have been burdened by the strong impact of the COVID-19 pandemic", the report read.
Aside from the tough COVID-19 containment measures, the world economy suffers from the supply and demand shock as well as "the severe disruption in the financial markets," the cartel noted.
The US economic growth "is forecast to decline by 4.1% in 2020, following growth of 2.3% in 2019. An even larger decline is seen in the Euro-zone, where economic activity is forecast to fall by 6.0% in 2020, compared with growth of 1.2% in 2019," the OPEC said in a report.
As China has managed to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it may experience a GDP growth of 1.5 percent, which nevertheless is a huge decline from a growth of 6.1 percent in 2019, according to the cartel.
"Russia’s economy is forecast to decline by 0.5% in 2020, not only due to COVID-19, but also because of the considerable decline in oil prices. Depending on near-term developments in the oil market, the Russian economy is forecast to recover in 2H20, after an expected considerable contraction in the first two quarters of the year", the OPEC added.
The COVID-19 will continue to pressure the GDP growth worldwide well into the second quarter of 2020, according to the report.
"Therefore, most regions are forecast to see a slowdown through 2Q20, recovering only towards the second half of 3Q20. Importantly, this assumes that the pandemic is widely contained by 3Q20 and that lock-down measures will be reduced to a large extent on a global base, including especially the major economies", the cartel concluded.
The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic triggered an economic crisis this year as it has drastically reduced air traffic worldwide, shut down production and forced many to work from home, driving demand for jet fuel and gasoline down.