The global economy has lost momentum due to rising interest rates, the invasion of Ukraine and widening geopolitical rifts, and faces new uncertainty from the war between Israel and Hamas fighters, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. I warned you.
The IMF forecast that global economic growth will slow to 2.9% in 2024 from 3% expected this year. The outlook for next year has been lowered by one notch from the 3% forecast in July.
The slowdown comes as the world has yet to fully recover from the devastating but short-lived COVID-19 recession of 2020 and is likely to see the effects of the Middle East conflict, particularly on oil prices. It happened in
A series of previous shocks, including the pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine, have reduced global economic output by about $3.7 trillion over the past three years compared to pre-COVID-19 trends.
IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Grinchat said at a press conference during the IMF's annual meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, that “the global economy is not sprinting, it is limping.” Ta.
The IMF's growth forecast for this year is 3%, down from 3.5% in 2022 but unchanged from its July forecast.
Grinchas said it was “too early” to assess the impact of the days-long war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza on global economic growth. He said the IMF was “closely monitoring the situation” and noted that oil prices had risen by about 4% in the past few days.
“We've seen it in previous crises and conflicts. And of course this reflects the potential risk that there could be disruption to oil production and transportation in the region.” he said.
Mr Grincha said if the 10% rise in oil prices were sustained, global economic growth would fall by 0.15% and global inflation would rise by 0.4%.
“However, I would like to stress again that it is really premature to jump to conclusions here,” he added.
So far, oil price increases have been “quite contained”, said Carsten Fritsch, a commodities analyst at Commerzbank. He pointed to the lack of support for Hamas from major oil producers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq, and said they were unlikely to restrict supplies in response to war.
Grinchas says the global economy has so far shown “remarkable resilience” as the US Federal Reserve and central banks around the world aggressively raise interest rates to combat a resurgence in inflation. said.
The increases have helped ease price pressures without putting many people out of work. This combination is “increasingly consistent” with a so-called soft landing, the idea that inflation can be contained without triggering a recession, he said.
The IMF expects global consumer price inflation to fall from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.9% this year and 5.8% in 2024.
The United States stands out in the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook, which was completed before the war between Israel and Hamas began. The IMF has raised its forecast for U.S. growth this year to 2.1% (same level as 2022) and 1.5% in 2024 (significantly revised upward from the 1% forecast in July).
The United States, an energy exporter, has not been hit as hard as countries such as Europe by oil prices, which soared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year and more recently due to Saudi Arabia's production cuts. And American consumers have been more willing than other consumers to spend their savings during the pandemic.
The picture is even bleaker for the 20 countries that share the euro currency and are exposed to rising energy prices. The IMF has lowered the euro zone's growth rate to 0.7% this year and 1.2% in 2024. In fact, it expects the German economy to contract by 0.5% this year before recovering to 0.9% growth next year.
This is lower than even the Russian economy, which the IMF predicts will grow at 2.2% this year, but will fall to 1.1% next year.
China's economy, the world's second largest, is expected to grow by 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024, both of which have been revised downward from the IMF's July forecast.
China's economy was expected to recover this year after the Communist government lifted a strict “zero-coronavirus” lockdown that had stunted growth in 2022, but the country is struggling with problems with an overbuilt housing market.
The IMF reiterated its concern that countries around the world are becoming fragmented into geopolitical blocs that could limit international trade and global economic growth.
The United States and its allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine and are seeking to reduce dependence on imports from China amid rising tensions with Beijing.
The IMF noted that countries imposed nearly 3,000 new trade restrictions last year, up from fewer than 1,000 in 2019. It expects international trade to grow by just 0.9% this year and 3.5% in 2024, down from an annual average of 4.9% between 2000 and 2019. %.
