PARIS: The head of the World Bank said Thursday that the lender planned to introduce a “pause” mechanism for debtor countries in the event of them being hit by a crisis.
Ajay Banga told a summit on financing the fight against climate change that the multilateral lender would adopt a new approach that “significantly expands the World Bank’s toolkit.”
The most important measure would be offering “a pause on debt repayments so countries can focus on what matters when a crisis hits and stop worrying about the bill that is going come,” he added.
The idea has been promoted by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, who has become a leading champion for low-income countries as well as fellow low-lying island nations.
She has sought to highlight how heavily indebted developing countries are unable to respond to natural disasters, as well as international crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic or inflation sparked by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Caribbean islands like hers are increasingly vulnerable to tropical storms which can devastate homes and property, as well as livelihoods linked to the vital tourism industry.
The World Bank, the sister organization of the International Monetary Fund, is a top public lender for countries to finance their infrastructure and other project.
The two-day Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris has seen calls for major reform of the nearly 80-year-old institutions, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling them “not completely suited” to tackle current challenges.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “It is clear that the international financial architecture has failed in its mission to provide a global safety net for developing countries.”

RIYADH: A rebound in oil and non-oil activities is expected to help the UAE maintain its projected growth rate of 4.3 percent in 2024, the latest quarterly report from the apex bank showed.    
In its economic review report for the first quarter, the Central Bank of the UAE forecast the country’s oil and non-oil gross domestic product in 2024 will grow at 3.5 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.
The CBUAE said its decision to keep the 2024 growth forecast unchanged reflects the stability and adherence to the agreed-upon production levels in the oil market, contributing to a balanced and sustainable economic outlook.
While the UAE’s central bank has kept the emirate’s growth forecast unchanged for the next year, it reduced the projection for 2023 by 0.6 percentage points to 3.3 percent due to oil production cuts agreed among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, also known as OPEC+.   
The CBUAE noted that the UAE economy continued to grow steadily during the first three months of the year, reflecting a robust non-oil sector performance. 
It expects the non-oil sector to continue to support aggregate output, albeit at a more modest pace compared to 2022.
Following a solid performance in 2022 with a growth rate of 9.5 percent, supported by an average daily oil production of 3.1 million barrels, the oil GDP growth in the first quarter of 2023 is estimated to have moderated to 3.1 percent year on year following the agreements of OPEC+.  
The report said the non-oil sector in the UAE is anticipated to have experienced a slightly lower growth rate in the first quarter of 2023, following a robust expansion of 7.2 percent in 2022.
However, the CBUAE revised its non-oil GDP growth projection for 2023 upward to 4.5 percent from 4.2 percent.  
“Performance in 2023 and 2024 is subject to the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine, a faster than expected deceleration in global growth, further OPEC+ cuts or increases in oil production, and subdued production of other OPEC+ members,” the review stated.  
In 2022, the UAE experienced a substantial revenue increase of 596.8 billion dirhams ($162.4 billion).   
It represented a growth rate of 27 percent compared to the previous year, primarily attributed to higher total tax receipts and social contributions.