The Middle East and Africa (MEA) has been identified as the region with the highest risk offerings, with a score of 54 out of 100, for investors driven by “social unrest, food insecurity, rising debt, and inflation,” according to a leading data and analytics company, GlobalData.
Syria, Yemen, and Libya were on the list of the highest-risk countries in the third quarter of 2022.
The research showed that the Americas region’s risk score was 47.7 out of 100 during the third quarter, making it the second highest region with investments risk; followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 41 and Europe at 33.4.
“While rising oil prices has increased the revenue of major oil producers and exporters in the MEA, high fuel costs have adversely impacted low-income nations – especially given their heavy dependence on staple food imports from Russia and Ukraine,” GlobalData economic research analyst Puja Tiwari said.
Tiwari added: “Humanitarian crisis across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, along with skyrocketing poverty, is impacting the MEA region. Due to curtailment of wheat exports from two main producers in the world (especially wheat from Russia and Ukraine), many countries across the MEA are already facing major food crisis.”
The research also showed that global risk rose from 44 and 44.9 out of 100 in the second and third quarter of 2022, respectively.
Tiwari said the major causes of global risk is inclusive of rising costs due to the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Russia, followed by Europe’s energy crisis, China’s slowdown of growth, aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks, currency depreciation and stock market crashes.
“While governments of major economies are undertaking various fiscal measures to deal with the rising prices, this will weigh on already strained government finances. Moreover, with several economies tightening monetary policy, the increasing borrowing costs will remain another challenge moving into Q4 and beyond,” Tiwari said.
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