Australians and other citizens around the planet scraped their way through a cash-strapped 2022 but the new year might bring with it an even more turbulent economic landscape.
And one country is mostly to blame – China.
Experts have issued a grim warning about the state of the world’s finances for 2023 as China is caught in the throes of the worst Covid-19 outbreak the globe has yet seen.
A month ago, on December 7, Chinese President Xi Jinping abruptly abandoned his controversial zero-Covid policy amid unprecedented protests across the country, causing Covid-19 to rip through the population.
The International Monetary Fund warned on New Year’s Eve that economic slowdown in Europe, the US and China didn’t bode well for the global economy.
The sluggish growth in Asia is of particular concern.
Head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, told CBS: “For the first time in 40 years, China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth.”
This will have massive flow-on effects, experts warned.
George Magnus, an economist and associate of Oxford University’s China Centre, said China’s Covid infections could have a global impact.
“You are going to see supply chains getting choked up, ports will become congested, they won’t export as much…