IMF says world economy will shrink by almost 5%

The International Monetary Fund has sharply lowered its forecast for global growth this year because it envisions far more severe economic damage from the coronavirus than it did just two months ago.

The IMF predicts that the global economy will shrink 4.9 percent this year, significantly worse than the 3% drop it had estimated in its previous report in April. It would be the worst annual contraction since immediately after World War II.

For the United States, the IMF predicts that the nation’s gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced in the United States — will plummet 8% this year, even more than its April estimate of a 5.9% drop. This, too, would be the worst such annual decline since the US economy demobilized in the aftermath of World War II.

In the Middle East, it predicts a contraction of 4.7% this year.

— AP