From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
IMF foresees a slight drop in global growth from pandemic
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleThe International Monetary Fund is slightly downgrading its outlook for the global recovery from the pandemic recession, reflecting the persistence of supply chain disruptions in industrialized countries and deadly disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor nations.
In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF foresees global growth this year of 5.9%, compared with its projection in July of 6%.
For the United Sates, the world’s largest economy, the IMF predicts growth of 6% for 2021, below its July forecast of 7%. The downward revision reflects a slowdown in economic activity resulting from a rise in COVID-19 cases and delayed production caused by supply shortages and a resulting acceleration of inflation.
The IMF predicts that for the world’s advanced economies as a whole, growth will amount to 5.2% this year, compared with a meager predicted gain of 3% for low-income developing countries.
“The dangerous divergence in economic prospects across countries,” the IMF says, “remains a major concern.”
The monetary fund expects the total output from advanced economies to recoup the losses they suffered during the pandemic by 2022 and to exceed their pre-pandemic growth path by 2024.
But in emerging and developing countries outside of China, the IMF warns, output will remain an estimated 5.5% below the output growth path that the IMF had been forecasting before the pandemic struck in March of last year. That downgrade poses a serious threat to living standards in those countries, the monetary fund said.
The Times of Israel Community.