World Bank: Kuwait’s economy faces severest hit in decades

COVID-19 has been the severest blow dealt to the Kuwaiti economy since the 1990 Iraqi invasion, the World Bank (WB) warned yesterday.

WB’s Resident Representative for Kuwait, Ghassan Alkhoja, told Al-Anba that the Kuwaiti economy would “shrink by 5.4 per cent this year and recover by about one per cent in 2021.”

The economist pointed out that coronavirus affected the performance of Kuwait’s “most significant economic activities,” stressing that the current situation was requiring “a road map for clear economic reform that achieves the government’s Vision 2035.”

He noted that the plan would hinge on “how long the pandemic would last and global oil prices.”

A total of 63,773 people in Kuwait have contracted the virus, 433 of whom have died and 54,373 others have recovered, according to Worldometre.

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