With buffers waning, most vulnerable corporates and sectors have been caught between a rock and hard place in 2023, with hospitality, transportation and wholesale/retail on the front line.
The African continent is showing much greater resilience than expected, given the set of macro-financial conditions. Economic resilience and adaptability to prolonged political violence, events leading to business interruption and challenging financing conditions will set the stage for an acceleration in 2024-2025 as many growth enablers persist.
A trough in global economic activity is expected at the turn of the year followed by below-trend growth in 2024-25. Consumer demand will remain soft amid negative wealth effects and increasing precautionary savings.
2022 was an annus horribilis for savers. Asset prices fell across the board in the „everything slump“ scenario. The result was a dismal -2.7% decline in private households’ global financial assets, the strongest drop since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008.
