Dubai’s economy shrank by 3.5% y/y in Q1 amid coronavirus crisis – Saudi Gazette

Dubai’s economy shrank by 3.5% y/y in Q1 amid coronavirus crisis – Saudi Gazette

The impact of the current worldwide crisis on Dubai in the first quarter of the year was less compared to some of the world's major economies, DSC noted. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects a 4.9 percent decline in the global economy in 2020, in contrast to a growth of 2.9 percent in 2019. Advanced and developing economies are expected to decline by 8 percent and 3 percent in 2020 respectively while Middle East and Central Asia are expected to contract by 4.7 percent in 2020 compared to 1 percent in 2019.Key sectors of the Dubai economy continued to maintain their dynamism in the first quarter. Real estate, finance, manufacturing and the government sector retained their growth momentum in Q1 2020.Arif Al Muhairi, Executive Director of DSC, stated, "Dubai's economy witnessed healthy levels of growth in 2019. It was expected that in the first quarter of 2020, the economy will experience a decline due to the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.""The worldwide restrictions on movement for individuals through air, sea, and land entry points, as well as the unprecedented intensification of precautionary measures, which limited the flow of freight across borders, had significant repercussions on international trade and the