Addis Ababa, January 31, 2023 (Walta)-The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that global economic growth will slow down to 2.9 percent in 2023, from a previously estimated 3.4 percent.
The raising interest rates by central banks to tame inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the resurgence of COVID-19 in China were cited as the main factors for the slowdown.
The only good news in the prediction is that it will show a slight revival in 2024 with 3.1 percent growth, although it doesn’t match up to the pre-pandemic figure: of 3.8 percent.
It is estimated that the growth of economically advanced countries is expected to grow by 1.2 percent, slashed by half from the estimated 2.7 percent growth of the year. Accordingly, America will grow by 1.4%, Germany by 0.1%, France by 0.7%, and England by -0.6%.
The forecast for emerging economies such as India and China is projected to show strong growth in 2023. Countries in this category will record an average global economic growth of 5.3 percent in 2023, according to the IMF estimate.
Hence, India will show the highest figure which is 6.1% while China follows closely with 5.2%.
On the other hand, the forecast indicated that growth of the low income developing countries will grow by 4.6 percent as they did in 2022.
Strong multilateral cooperation, speeding up OVID-19 vaccination, debt restructuring, fiscal support and climate change mitigation are recommended solutions to alleviate the economic slowdown