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Sovereign debt is biggest risk to global growth in 2025: Saudi minister

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Watch CNBC’s full interview with Saudi Arabia’s minister of finance

RIYADH — National debt is a major threat to markets in the near future, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister said, expressing particular concern over lower income countries as well as what he described as rapidly growing global fragmentation.

“I think globally, the serious, serious issue that we need to watch is sovereign debt issues, particularly in low income countries and emerging economies that do not have the fiscal buffers to lean into in case of disruptions in the market,” Mohammed Al-Jadaan told CNBC’s Dan Murphy Wednesday from the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh.

“And hopefully between the IMF and the G20 we will find a solution, and we will be ready to support the world economy in case of shocks in that area, but it is an area that we need to watch, as global leaders, to make sure that it doesn’t surprise us.”

Global public debt hit a record $97 trillion in 2023, prompting the United Nations to call for urgent reforms for governments and financial systems around the world.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan attends a panel panel at the annual Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh on October 25, 2023. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP) (Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

Fayez Nureldine | Afp | Getty Images

Particularly in Africa, the UN wrote in a June report this year, “faltering economies in the wake of multiple global crises have resulted in a heavier debt burden.” The number of African countries with debt-to-GDP rations surpassing 60% has more than quadrupled from 6 to 27 between 2013 and 2023, the report said.

Paying back debt has also become more expensive, hitting emerging market and developing countries more intensely.

“I think the painful fact is that low-income countries, a lot of them, are now having today their debt service that is actually more [costly] than their health care, education and climate action combined,” Al-Jadaan said Wednesday.

“That is not good for the world, and we need to make sure that we find a solution to that. Hopefully we will, and we are working collectively global to reach that solution.”

IMF's Jihad Azour discusses reasons behind the decline in growth in the MENA region

Economics

Why stricter voting laws no longer help Republicans

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“The Republicans should pray for rain”—the title of a paper published by a trio of political scientists in 2007—has been an axiom of American elections for years. The logic was straightforward: each inch of election-day showers, the study found, dampened turnout by 1%. Lower turnout gave Republicans an edge because the party’s affluent electorate had the resources to vote even when it was inconvenient. Their opponents, less so.

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Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief

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Who decides what legal terms mean? If it is Donald Trump, God help America

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Economics

Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

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Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.

Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.

Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.

Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.

Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.

People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.

On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.

Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.

Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.

Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.

At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.

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