Speed of global recovery affects commodity supply
The rapidity of the global recovery has affected the supply of basic products, noted the Bank of Italy.
Despite the risks associated with new variants of the virus, the global recovery continues.
Trade has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but tensions have arisen over the supply of commodities and intermediate inputs, in part due to the speed of the recovery.
From the angle of Italy‘s central bank, supply bottlenecks could affect prices in the United States for longer than initially anticipated. Natural gas prices have risen significantly, especially in Europe.
In summer, the spread of the Delta variant initially led to an increase in infection globally, but the increase in deaths was less marked in areas with high vaccination rates.
On the one hand, infection rates have gradually decreased since September, below the levels of early July.
On the other hand, mobility has continued to rise everywhere, returning to near-pandemic levels.
Global recovery
Vaccination campaigns have slowed down in areas where they were at a more advanced stage (the United States, the United Kingdom and the euro area); they have accelerated considerably in Japan; and they still lag far behind in low-income economies.
In the second quarter, GDP continued to grow steadily in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, it registered a strong recovery, with the easing of restrictions, and it rose moderately in Japan.
Economic activity recovered its level at the end of 2019 in the United States, while it is still below this level in Japan and the United Kingdom, 1.4 and 3.3 percentage points, respectively.
Meanwhile, Purchasing Managers Indices (PMIs) suggest that growth was still strong in the United States and the United Kingdom in the third quarter, although it slowed.
For Japan, they indicate a weak recovery in the manufacturing sector and a contraction in services, the latter affected by the extension of restrictive measures.
In China, GDP growth slowed considerably, in part due to the downturn in the real estate sector, which was affected by the bankruptcy of the Evergrande group.
