Mawani and Saudi ministry sign deal to boost public health risk mitigation across ports and vessels zawya.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from zawya.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) and the Saudi Ministry of Health signed a partnership agreement to enhance the implementation of global health regulations. This collaboration aims to strengthen public health risk prevention efforts.
The impact of Covid-19 in the Middle East
Since the UAE confirmed the first cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in the region on 29 January 2020, more than 4.8 million people have been reported as having Covid-19 in the Middle East and North Africa. And some 116,262 people have died with the disease, according to Worldometers.
The economic impact has been catastrophic. Oil prices fell more than 50 per cent in March 2020, and the IMF projects that real GDP growth in the Mena region in 2020 was negative 5 per cent.
While stimulus spending and monetary easing provided the liquidity needed to keep economies moving and companies solvent through the lockdowns, fiscal deficits in the GCC have risen to 9.2 per cent of GDP in 2020 from 1.9 per cent in 2019. At the same time, sovereign debt in the region has risen to an average of about 29 per cent.