OECD warns global economic risks will continue

London

THE global economy will continue to be on a tightrope until a vaccine for the Covid-19 virus becomes widely available, based on the findings of a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Faced with this extraordinary uncertainty, its latest economic outlook report released on Wednesday presents two possible scenarios.

The relatively less pessimistic "single hit" outcome is that the severity of the pandemic continues to recede and remains under control.

Under those circumstances, the OECD predicts that the world economy will contract by 6 per cent this year and recover to grow by 5.2 per cent in 2021.

The second "double-hit" scenario is that there is a another wave of the pandemic in the fourth quarter of this year and the world economy declines by 7.6 per …