20th information event on government advice: Under the influence of geopolitics
The 20th High-Level Event on Government Adivce took place during the week of 21 February – 25 February 2022.
Due to the continuous growth of project countries, including most recently Kosovo, the event was divided into a total of three days and took place in a hybrid format. We were pleased to welcome a high number of participants.
As part of the information event organised together with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), the German Economic Team presents its semi-annual economic outlooks. These give a concise and compact impression of the macroeconomic situation in the project countries and present current economic policy issues.
You can find the current economic outlooks here.
The event was moderated by Ms. Yildiz Götze, Head of Division at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection.
All participants were under the impression of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which had just overcome the economic shock caused by the Corona pandemic and which many experts already saw on the road to economic recovery. Not only the economic future of the country is now fundamentally in question, but also its continued existence as an independent nation.
Apart from political conflict issues, the situation in the project countries is characterised by a more or less strong recovery of the national economies after the distortions of the Corona pandemic. Particularly strong increases in economic growth in 2021 were recorded in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Kosovo, among others. In some project countries, expatriate remittances play a major role in economic activity – these include Kosovo, Georgia and Armenia. However, geopolitical upheavals continue to pose considerable risks to economic recovery, e.g. currency turbulence and a rise in risk premiums on government bonds, but also disruptions in interstate trade. These risks are all the greater the more closely the regional economies are economically intertwined with the conflict countries. Here, the risk potential in the event of a progressive escalation is considerable for almost all project countries.
In Belarus, on the other hand, growth last year was comparatively low at 2.3%, although stronger than in previous years. This is a continuation of a trend that has been determining development for some time – rather weak growth that is hampered by delayed reforms as well as structural problems. Moreover, Western sanctions are putting an additional strain on the Belarusian economy.
Encouragingly, real future sectors are developing in some countries, such as the IT sector. Here, Ukraine in particular has enormous potential. Otherwise, mainly country-specific topics, developments and problem areas were on the agenda.
The heads of sub-divisions, Dr Andreas Nicolin and Dr Heinz Hetmeier, each delivered introductory remarks.
