A “bleak and more uncertain” outlook for the economy. Thus the new World Economic Outlook (WEO) of the International Monetary Fund, released today.
The Washington institution cut its estimates on the global GDP trend for 2022 and 2023, respectively to + 3.2% and + 2.9%, with a downgrade of 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points compared to the ‘outlook for April.
The IMF explained the downside revision by the fact that the downside risks it presented in its previous report are materializing.
Among the challenges on which the Fund had warned, those of a global outbreak of inflation, a slowdown in the economy worse than expected in China and the further consequences unleashed by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“The preliminary recovery of 2021 was followed by developments that became more bleak in 2022 – reads the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) – Several shocks have hit a world economy already weakened by the pandemic: higher inflation than the expectations around the world – especially in the United States and in the main economies of Europe, a factor that has triggered tighter financial conditions; a slowdown worse than expected in China, which reflected the infections of Covid-19 and lockdowns; and the further negative effects of the war in Ukraine ”.