Seattle Daily Star

  In an exclusive interview, Jihad Azour, director of the fund’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, says rising prices risk social stability in lower-income countries Gathering international co-operation will be necessary to help prevent a food crisis in the Middle East and North Africa this year as the war in Ukraine drives prices higher and risks supply, the IMF ’s regional director said. On Wednesday, the fund released its Middle East and Central Asia Regional Economic Outlook, which shows a divergent picture in 2022 for the region, with oil exporters such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia set to earn higher revenue this year compared with 2021, thanks to higher oil prices. Uncertainty is also increasing with the duration of the war in Ukraine, a significant factor in how the rest of Mena will fare amid rising inflation and growing food insecurity. Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, told the Business Extra podcast that co-operation...

  Consumers have developed tools to tackle an oil crisis since the 1970s, but nothing of the sort exists for gas There have been global oil supply crises — in 1973–74, 1978–80 and 1990, all triggered by events in the Middle East. There has never been a worldwide natural gas crisis. Now we are in the midst of one — not near the beginning of the end, but probably at the end of the beginning. It is bound to get much worse from here. There have, of course, been regional gas shocks before, usually because of weather or natural disasters such as Japan’s nuclear shutdown after the 2011 Fukushima accident (leading to a revolution in LNG trading), and some related to cut-offs for political reasons, for instance Russia -Ukraine in 2006 and 2009, and Egyptian exports to Jordan and Israel after the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak. There could not have been a global gas crisis before because the market became globalised only in the last decade. For most of this time, gas prices ...