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Terrorism’s Collateral Damage Does not Include Slowing Down Economic Growth | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Terrorism’s Collateral Damage Does Not Include Slowing Down Economic Growth


Berlin- A recent German study proved that international terrorism, unlike expected fears, will not pose great scale losses or slow down economic growth of industrial countries.

According to a research prepared by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI), and in cooperation with Hamburg’s Berenberg Bank, published on Thursday, economic consequences entailed by the terrorist attacks are relatively restricted in comparison to the human pain they cause, despite being measured in billions.

Researchers based their findings on World Bank, insurance sector, and NGO data.

According to statistics, accumulative devastation caused by terrorist attacks on an economic sphere has amounted to a total of 53 billion euros ($58.8 billion) in direct losses, according to last log taken in 2014. Direct losses include destroyed infrastructure and loss in labor force combined.

Researchers added that local GDP losses are scaled per-mill, which is relatively small and insignificant, should terrorist attacks only focus on large scale and industrially developed sites.

Moreover, experts expect that Western Europe countries will have the highest rate of counterterrorism expenditure so that spending will hit a solid $146 billion by 2020, compared to a current $85 billion.

Moreover, researchers pointed out that indirect expenses are mostly collateral damage to direct losses, companies reduce investment, taking the risk factor into larger consideration as consumer trust and personal consumption retracts.

Experts believe that the attacks mainly target sectors affiliated with tourism and transport, which are mainly proving to be a chief mark for terrorist attacks.

A Berenberg Bank economic expert warned that terrorism will have a long-term effect on citizens in targeted countries, especially countries with emerging markets as counterterrorism protocol depresses the flow of trade and commerce.