World Bank President Ajay Banga. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

World Bank President Ajay Banga said on October 24 that geopolitic tensions pose the biggest threat to the world economy, but that risks “tend to move around” fast, so others should not be ignored.

“The U.S. 10-year Treasury [yield] just crossed 5% briefly yesterday, these are areas we haven’t seen. So yes, that is right there lurking in the shadows,” Banga said during the annual Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh.

“And then, how long before the next pandemic?

“There is so much going on in the world and geopolitics in the wars that you’re seeing and what just happened recently in Israel and Gaza. At the end of the day, when you put all this together, I think the impact on economic development is even more serious,” he said.

“While everything looks better than we expected it to look in the developed world some time ago, I think that we’re at a very dangerous juncture.”