Letters: Growth tied to oil prices

The editorial, "Good, bad and… risky" (July 21) aptly highlights the International Monetary Fund report that more than inequality, the underlying problem plaguing the global economy today is lack of growth.

For decades, the global economy has been predicated on oil. So much so that oil and energy-related economic sectors carry trillions of dollars in investments. Steep oil prices had been coterminous with a surge in global trade and growth of the global economy. As global trade peaked so did crude oil prices.

Post 2008-09, every country's economy suffered as crude prices fell steadily. In the past nine months, investments in the oil sector worth $750 billion have been stranded and that corpus is growing.

Oil exporting nations are in a fix in the absence of growth-led demand elsewhere. Intertwined as today's economies are, the plunging of prices of oil and commodities has failed to lift global economic prospects.

Countries have to wait for oil prices to rebound to reinvigorate their economies. This, more than others, could dictate global growth, which in turn, might even out socioeconomic disparities that seed unrest.

R Narayanan, Ghaziabad

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