News - Middle East: Rising prices, fallout from the Ukraine conflict and persisting supply chain cutoffs have stalled economic growth across the globe in the year’s first quarter, faltering efforts by major economies to recoup from the pandemic.

The latest evidence was marked on Friday, after the European Union announced that the 19 countries that use the euro grew only 0.2 percent overall during January, February and March compared with the previous three months.

The development came a day after the US declared that its economy had shrunk 0.4 percent over the same period.

“The overarching message is that the global growth outlook is souring, and it is deteriorating at a faster rate and in a more serious way than most analysts have anticipated,” said Neil Shearing, chief group economist at the London-based Capital Economics as quoted in a New York Times report.

According to the report, while the European economy is mostly affected by the conflict in Ukraine, the US economy suffers from declining output, high inflation as well as a tight labor market, and China is being pounded by a slump in the real estate industry, overinvestment and pandemic-related closures.

The common problem they all face, however, is inflation, according to economic experts.