Washington, Apr 11 (EFE).- The global economy will continue to slow down in 2023 and will only grow 2.8% this year and 3% next year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warns that these figures are historically very low, although he stresses that in no case do they represent a recession.
The IMF published its world economic outlook report on Tuesday, in which it stresses the uncertainty that continues to reign in the global panorama, with many countries still absorbing the effects of the pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation still very high and more restrictive financial conditions that hinder recovery.
But it also stresses that the recent episodes of volatility in the banking sector have made the “fog” hanging over the global economy now “thicker”.
In any case, the Fund rules out a recession.
“Our baseline projection for 2023 is relatively low growth of 2.8%, which is far from a global recession,” IMF director of research Pierre Olivier Gourinchas, head of the outlook report, told a news conference. global.
Much of the slowdown in 2023 will be due to low growth in the most developed economies, which will see their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increase by barely 1.3% compared to 2022.
Significant is the case of Germany, for which the IMF lowers its forecasts for 2023 by two tenths and now calculates a slight fall, of 0.1%, or the United Kingdom, where despite improving the forecast somewhat, the Fund calculates a decline in 2023 of 0.3%.
The euro zone will only grow 0.8% this year and 1.4% next year. Of the large European economies, Spain continues to be the fastest growing, 1.5% this year and 2% next year.
The world’s leading economy, the United States, sees its prospects improve somewhat but it does not go back much: It will grow 1.6% this year and 1.1% next year, according to the report.
And in the face of the cooling off of the large ones, it is the emerging ones that are pushing the most: they will grow 3.9% this year and 4.2% in 2024, mainly driven by the advance of China and India.
For its part, Latin America and the Caribbean will grow slightly in 2023 but will continue to face high inflation. The report estimates that the region will grow 1.6% this year, two tenths below what was previously expected, and far from the 4% growth it registered in 2022.
THE SHADOW BANKING
All in all, the IMF experts warned of the “shadow” that hangs over the world economy with the recent banking uncertainty, which broke out after the bankruptcy in the United States of Silicon Valley Bank (SVC), weighed down by the policy of high interest rates of the Federal Reserve (Fed) to combat inflation.
Gourinchas explained that the situation has led them to place greater emphasis on the risks that the global economy would face in the event that greater uncertainty led the banking sector to restrict the credit it offers to its clients.
This scenario would mean “close to zero growth of GDP per capita” in 2023, which, however, would also serve to reduce inflation by around one percentage point, according to the report.
ON THE ROAD WITH HIGH INFLATION
Another of the risks identified by the IMF is that inflation remains high for longer than expected, which would force central banks to continue with their high rate policy for longer than expected, which in turn would further cool the inflation rate. economy.
Persistent inflation, which according to Gourinchas will remain around 7% globally this year, will contribute to creating an environment of uncertainty in which any unexpected problem can generate a more lasting crisis.
The agency expects that by 2024 inflationary pressures will have softened to 4.9%, added the economist.
The Fund also identifies other possible adverse scenarios, such as lower-than-expected growth in the Chinese economy, which could have an adverse effect on countries that export raw materials, or an escalation of the war in Ukraine that contributes to inflationary pressures.
“There is a lot of uncertainty clouding the short- and medium-term outlook as the global economy recovers from the shocks of 2020-2022,” the report explains.
