IMF Chief Warns Saudi Attacks Could Impact Global Economy
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that Saudi Arabia's economic stability and regional conflicts could create significant negative spillovers for the global economy, particularly regarding energy costs and inflation.
Newsnibs Staff
- 2026-10-14
- Updated 10:29 AM UTC
(Bangkok, Thailand)
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that recent attacks on Saudi Arabia could bring "potentially negative spillovers for everybody, everywhere." Georgieva made the remarks in Bangkok on Wednesday during the IMF and World Bank's Annual Meetings. Middle East Eye reported she said it to AFP; The Times of Israel reported it came at a news conference. Georgieva said the Saudi economy matters to the region and to the world, and that rising energy costs combined with multiple conflicts across the crude-rich region could affect people far beyond it.
The warning follows an IMF briefing a day earlier in Bangkok that found conflicts in the Middle East are widening global inequality. The IMF's language included references to the "war on Iran" and what it called "Israel's genocide in Gaza." The fund reported that Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar have had oil and gas exports disrupted by the war on Iran, and it expects those four countries to post double-digit drops in total output this year.
Saudi Arabia's own outlook, compiled before the recent attacks on Riyadh's airport, had the kingdom's economy shrinking 3.3 percent this year before rebounding to 7.9 percent growth in 2027. The report said Houthi attacks now threaten the growth of Saudi tourism as well.
World Bank President Ajay Banga said energy has become a security issue for governments everywhere. "Every country has now suddenly figured out that energy security is national security," he said.
Georgieva also raised a separate, longer-term risk: she said the IMF estimates artificial intelligence could eventually augment, downgrade or eliminate 40 percent of jobs. Poorer and developing nations are expected to bear the brunt of that shift, the fund said, because they have fewer resources to compete with wealthier countries for supplies.
Silvana Tenreyro, the IMF's chief economist, warned that a prolonged Middle East conflict could push inflation higher and slow growth further. The fund's latest forecasts put global growth at 3.1 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2027, with inflation rising to 4.7 percent this year before easing to 4.1 percent next year.
The IMF cited Russia's war in Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs as additional sources of global instability, alongside high energy prices and a forecast "super" El Nino weather pattern that experts say could cause 450,000 heat-related deaths.
Photo by Timothy Newman on Unsplash
