World Bank

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The fallout from the coronavirus spread that has killed more than 83,000 people and wreaked havoc on economies around the world could push around half a billion people into poverty, Oxfam said on Thursday.

The World Bank has revised significantly its estimates of the Romanian economy's advance this year, down to 0.3 percent from 3.8 percent, as projected three months ago, but growth would gradually bounce back in the second half of 2020 and further accelerate in 2021 to 4.4 percent, according to the World Bank's economic update spring 2020.

The fallout from the coronavirus spread that has killed more than 83,000 people and wreaked havoc on economies around the world could push around half a billion people into poverty, Oxfam said on April 9.

According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the COVID-19 infected in the world are more than 785 thousand, and those who are cured are more than 165 thousand.

The poor countries "will take the hardest hit, especially ones that were already heavily indebted before the crisis," said David Malpass, World Bank chief.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday that the IMF expects the global economic recession in 2020 to be "at least as bad as during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis or worse" .

The International Monetary Fund expressed concern in a report issued on Wednesday about the weak supervision of the non-banking financial sector in Moldova and about inadequate efforts to prevent and combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Electrical workers at a power plant in the town of Obilic in Kosovo, December 2011. Photo: EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

US power generation company ContourGlobal has halted plans to build the 500-megawatt coal-fired Kosova e Re (New Kosovo) power plant, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 3 warned of a global shortage and price gouging for protective equipment to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus and asked companies and governments to increase production by 40 percent as the death toll from the respiratory illness mounted.