Taiwo Hassan 
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has disclosed that uncertainty in the global economy is poised to spark a further deterioration in risk sentiment with adverse growth implications, especially given high levels of public and private debts. LCCI gave this indication at an interactive session in Lagos recently. It said, no doubt, global economy may have shown some positive signs in the first quarter of 2023 as inflation and energy prices eased from their peak levels. However, the feared escalation of the war in Ukraine remained a major source of vulnerability, particularly for europe and lower-income countries.
According to LCCI, “China ended its zero-covid policy which also is expected to provide some growth impulses. “Risks to global growth tilted towards the downside. The feared escalation of the war in ukraine remains a major source of vulnerability, particularly for europe and lower- income countries. “Another range of triggers could spark a further deterioration in risk sentiment with adverse growth implications, especially given high levels of public and private debts. These potential triggers in- clude geopolitical fragmentation, sudden financial market repricing, inflation persisting and china’s recovery stalling. Given these developments, the international monetary fund (IMF) in its world economic outlook update for January 2023, projects that global growth will slow to 2.9 per cent in 2023 from 3.4 per cent in 2022.
“In most economies, amid the cost-of-living crisis, the priorities remain achieving sustained disinflation and reasonable real growth with tighter monetary conditions and lower growth potentially affecting financial and debt stability. “Also, sentiment indicators such as purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) have been signalling a sharp slowdown for months. And an array of consumer and business confidence indicators have given
