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For: Real America News Updated 27 Jan 2022, 10: 43 am EST
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the world economy is in a more complicated position than expected, mainly due to the impact caused by the Covid pandemic.
In addition, the agency said that other phenomena such as inflation, supply chain restrictions in the United States and China, the two largest economies in the world , are having an impact on this economic projection .
In its biannual report, World Economic Outlook, the IMF reported that world growth falls from 5.9% in 2021 to 4.4% this year, half a percentage point lower than its October forecast, and 3.8% in 2023.
The organization indicated that these growth projections have to do with the rising energy prices and supply chain disruptions that have resulted in higher-than-anticipated inflation, especially in the United States .
As if that were not enough, the IMF reduced its projections of economic growth for the United States, from 5.2% to 4%, these figures to the low, according to the agency, has to do with the shortage of supplies, the elimination of the stimuli due to the pandemic by the Federal Reserve.
In China things do not look better, the IMF indicated that the real estate sector and the zero tolerance Covid policy have induced a drop of 0.8 percentage points, that is, from 5.6% to 4.8%.
“The most pressing health risk” remains the impact of the Omicron variant, the researchers warned, adding that low vaccination rates in many countries risk generating new variants that could generate ar mobility restrictions, which could further reduce growth forecasts.
IMF Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath estimated the total economic losses from the pandemic at nearly $10.8 trillion dollars, roughly equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of China, the world’s second largest economy.
“The last two years reaffirm that this crisis and the ongoing recovery are unlike any other,” said Gopinath.
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