War to slash Ukraine’s economy 45 percent, World Bank forecasts
Russia’s invasion has shuttered businesses, slashed exports and destroyed productive capacity, the World Bank says.
- Ukraine’s GDP output will contract by more than 45 percent this year as a result of the Russian invasion, according to a World Bank forecast.
- The World Bank also forecast Russia’s GDP output to fall by more than 11 percent as a result of punitive sanctions.
- Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.
Here are the latest updates:
EU ‘could revisit renewable targets’ in push to quit Russian energy
The European Union could set more ambitious targets for its transition to renewable energy as it seeks alternatives to imports of oil and gas from Russia, EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans has said.
The European Commission has proposed that the EU cut imports of Russian gas by two-thirds this year, and is drafting plans to phase them out by 2027.
The Commission is due to propose a “Repower EU” plan in May for how the bloc can quit Russian fossil fuels.
“What we will do in the next couple of weeks is work towards what I call the Repower EU initiative, and as part of that we want to accelerate the energy transition. So in that context we might revisit our targets,” Timmermans told reporters during a visit to Cairo.
Austrian leader plans to meet Putin
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he would meet the Russian president on Monday in Moscow. It would be Putin’s first face-to-face meeting with a counterpart from the European Union since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February.
Read the full story here.
War to slash Ukraine’s economic output, says World Bank
Ukraine’s economic output will likely contract by 45.1 percent this year as Russia’s invasion has forced businesses to close, slashed exports and destroyed productive capacity, the World Bank has said in a new assessment of the war’s economic impacts.
The World Bank also forecast Russia’s 2022 GDP output to fall 11.2 percent due to punishing financial sanctions imposed by the United States and its Western allies on Russia’s banks, state-owned enterprises and other institutions.
The World Bank’s Eastern Europe region, comprising Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, is forecast to show a GDP contraction of 30.7 percent this year, due to shocks from the war and disruption of trade.
Ukraine says 2,824 more people evacuated
A total of 2,824 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Sunday, including 213 residents of the besieged southern port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post.
Powerful blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Mykolaiv: Local media
A series of powerful explosions were heard in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv and also in Mykolaiv, a city near the Black Sea in the southern part of the country, Ukrainian media has reported.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Read all the updates from April 10 here.
