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The International Monetary Fund affirms that there is an “uncertain scenario” for world finances in the next two years and lowered the forecast for world economic growth from 2.9% to 2.8%, far from the percentage that was reached in 2022. , when it was 3.4%. The entity assures that the complicated panorama of high inflation and the war in Ukraine is added to the recent crisis in the financial system with the bankruptcy of several banks around the world.
Two years of financial challenges are ahead for economies around the world. A conclusion reached by the directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during their spring meeting and which is reflected in the growth figures forecast in the April report.
The international lender is concerned that the crisis in the financial system of the United States and Switzerland will lead to a domino effect in other entities and end up undermining the already complex banking scenario in other latitudes.
“With the recent increase in volatility in financial markets, the fog around the global economic outlook has thickened,” says the official IMF statement, which also adds that “Uncertainty is high and we have shifted the balance of risk firmly to the downside, while the financial sector remains unstable.”
Advanced economies are expected to experience a sharp slowdown in their growth, falling from the 2.7% that they registered in 2022, to the 1.3% that they are expected to report in 2023.
Of these advanced economies, two of which the IMF highlights as having negative growth are Germany (-0.1%) and the United Kingdom (-0.3%).
For Latin America and the Caribbean, growth of 1.6% is projected for this year, two tenths below what was previously expectedand far from the 4% growth it registered in 2022.
IMF Growth Forecast: 2023
USA??: 1.6%
Germany??: -0.1%
France??: 0.7%
Italy??: 0.7%
Spain??: 1.5%
Japan??: 1.3%
UK??: -0.3%
Canada??: 1.5%
China??: 5.2%
India??: 5.9%
Russia??: 0.7%
Brazil??: 0.9%
Mexico??: 1.8%
KSA??: 3.1%
Nigeria??: 3.2%
RSA??: 0.1%https://t.co/lvRdo3zKMV pic.twitter.com/mZOsBfCYS5— IMF (@IMFNews) April 11, 2023
Good news amid a bleak outlook
Although since the Covid-19 pandemic various financial organizations have predicted complex scenarios for economies around the world, there are some countries where good times are predicted.
That is the case of Russia, which despite the multiple sanctions that the West has placed against it in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine, is estimated to grow 0.7% in 2023, four tenths more than forecast in the January report. , which shows that the Western bloc’s attempts to stifle its economy have not been as effective as the US and the European Union had hoped.
“Russia’s growth in 2023 is the result of a significant remnant of activity in 2022, the year in which very strong fiscal measures were taken and where quite a bit of fiscal spending was related to military spending,” said IMF research director Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
Better times are also forecast for the United States. The entity expects the first economy to grow 1.6% in 2023 from the 1.4% it had forecast in January. It also raised the outlook for 2024 by one tenth to 1.1%, but warned of the danger of “disturbances in the financial markets”.
As for the global reference inflation outlook, it is expected to fall from 8.7% registered in 2022 to 7.0% in 2023, a relief sponsored by the low prices of raw materials.
With Reuters.
