Russia’s central bank says a new financial crisis on the scale of the 2008 collapse could happen in less than 18 months if global inflation is not kept in check.
A surge in public and private sector debt levels during the recovery from the pandemic could cause the global economy to “deteriorate drastically and rapidly” if the US Federal Reserve has to jack up interest rates to quell inflation, the Bank of Russia warned in its annual monetary policy forecast.
The report, published on Thursday, said global gross domestic product growth could slow to just 1.1 per cent as higher interest rates prompt investors to dump risky assets. Emerging market countries with high levels of foreign debt would be particularly hurt.
The prediction is not the central bank’s central scenario. This instead foresees a broad economic recovery with inflationary pressures dissipating by the end of this year and is “significantly more likely” than its alternative scenarios of financial crisis, a worsening pandemic or rising global inflation.
Even so, the warning indicates Russia’s growing concern over increasing inflation worldwide. Whereas US and European central bank officials have said they consider price increases to be temporary, Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina told the Financial Times in July that growing inflationary pressure in Russia was likely to be a long-term phenomenon.
Russia’s warning also comes as inflationary pressures build across emerging Europe. The region’s easing of coronavirus restrictions has brought economic output in the second quarter back to pre-pandemic levels.
At the same time, however, this “recovery has been accompanied by a marked increase in price pressures. Consumer and producer price inflation reached multiyear highs in July and shows no sign of letting up,” Capital Economics, a consultancy, said in a note to clients.
Inflation in Brazil is running at 9 per cent, well above the central bank’s 3.75 per cent target, and economists expect the policy rate to rise to 7.5 per cent by the end of the year, from 5.25 per cent today.
“Against this global setting, the CBR [Russian central bank] did the right thing of getting ahead of inflation with hikes,” said Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance.
