At the start of the year, the global economy was projected to extend the strong post-pandemic recovery (2021: 6.1%) with a baseline growth rate of 3.6% in 2022. However, this bullish outlook was dented by the multifaceted negative spillovers from the ongoing war in Ukraine and aggressive monetary policy tightening by global systemic central banks targeted at curbing the runaway inflation. On the back of these developments, the IMF in its October 2022 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report downgraded its global growth projection for 2022 to 3.2% – its third downgrade since the war in Ukraine began in February.