globalnews.ca
42%
859
Russia one of the ‘biggest threats’ to world economy amid recession fears: Freeland
Russia’s war in Ukraine is proving to be “one of the biggest threats” to the world economy at the moment, according to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.Freeland, who also serves as Canada’s finance minister, made the comments to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Friday following the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which put out a stark world economic outlook earlier this week.“One of the biggest threats, not only to the lives of Ukrainians right now, not only to the sanctity of the international rules-based order, but also to the world economy today is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Freeland said.“There’s one simple thing that could happen that would make the global economy much more secure, and that is for Russia to get out of Ukraine.” As IMF warns of economic slowdown, Canada’s labour market could be critical buffer The IMF cited the war in Ukraine on Tuesday as one of the drivers for cutting its global growth forecast for 2023. High energy and food prices, inflation and sharply higher interest rates, also factored in to the IMF’s report, which indicated a third of the world economy will likely contract by next year.Russia’s war in Ukraine has been raging for close to eight months since the wide-scale invasion began on Feb.