Inflation top worry for G20 countries -survey

Runaway inflation, an unfolding debt crisis and cost-of-living problems pose the biggest threats to doing business for G20 countries in the next two years, data from the World Economic Forum showed on Monday.

Inflation has surged to levels not seen in several decades, prompting a third of G20 countries to identify rising prices as their top concern, the Executive Opinion Survey conducted by the World Economic Forum’s Center for the New Economy and Society showed.

Although central banks across the globe have embarked on an aggressive policy tightening path their efforts to tame inflation run the risk of tipping the global economy into a recession.

The survey, which comes ahead of the COP27 in Egypt and the G20 summit in Indonesia later this month, also showed that environmental concerns took a back seat for the first time in years as the world attends to more immediate socio-economic problems ranging from the fallout of the Ukraine war to a cost of living crisis.

Cyber attacks, despite rising instances of data breach and technology-based security threats, were among the least commonly cited risks.