World Bank warns of growing geopolitical commodity shocks, beyond oil crisis

AFTER Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the World Bank warned that the biggest commodities shock since the 1970s had hit. Now only four years later, the war in the Middle East represents a new “historic shock”, underpinned by sustained geopolitical fragility.

This high geostrategic volatility has also been highlighted by the International Monetary Fund, which pointed to how much such uncertainty has grown in recent years.

The Commodity Markets Outlook published by the World Bank on Apr 28 mentions the word “geopolitical” around 200 times, and even has a special section that dives into these challenges for the global economy.