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This year, everything is getting more expensive. This is called inflation. The word inflation comes from inflate, which means “to grow big”. For instance, we inflate balloons. 1． When everyone suddenly wants the same thing, it becomes scarce and the price goes up because people will pay more to get it. In fact, inflation has been described as “too much money chasing too few goods”.

2． During that time, people all over the world spent little money, because they were forced to stay home. Fuel prices dropped because people weren’t really going anywhere. But now that everything is getting back to normal in many countries, people want to go out and meet friends, get their hair properly cut and generally spend money again. So the demand for goods and services is rising rapidly.

In fact, the world has been hit by a number of drastic problems all coming together, ranging from the pandemic to war to climate change. Oil and gas prices dropped during the pandemic, but now have shot up again. 3． Extreme weather events all over the world have made things much worse. For example, droughts in China and California threatened hydropower, while heavy rainfall and flooding in South and Southeast Asia disrupted coal mining in countries like India and China. The cost of coffee increased when Brazil—the world’s largest producer—had a poor harvest after severe drought. 4．

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that 2023 could be the “darkest hour” for the global economy: “The three largest economies — the United States, China and the Euro area—will continue to stall. The worst is yet to come.” But, to end on a hopeful note, experts say that manufacturing and tourism are gradually rebounding in Malaysia, Thailand and the Pacific island countries. 5．