Global recession: WB, IMF warns about ‘worsening global outlook’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Barely three weeks before 2023 starts, global financial institutions, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, have raised concerns about a worsening global outlook but expressed the hope that China’s slow reopening could help support world economic growth.
According to the media reports on Friday, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said indicators show further downgrades to global growth.
Speaking after a meeting with China’s Prime Minister Li Keqiang in Anhui Province, she said Beijing’s recalibration of its Covid-19 policies and accompanying relaxations could be a good thing for the domestic economy and the rest of the world.
The IMF currently forecasts global growth will decline from 3.2 percent in 2022 to only 2.7 percent next year.
Their meeting was part of the “1+6” dialogue that China holds annually with heads of the IMF, World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO), and others.
World Bank chief David Malpass was also downbeat about the global outlook, saying he was “deeply concerned” the world will slip into recession. More needs to be done to lift the world out of stagflation, he said.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, said global trade faces real challenges and growth in trade was losing momentum. She estimated global goods trade will only grow 1 percent next year, a sharp slowdown from the estimated 3.7 percent expansion this year.
Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD, said the global economic outlook continues to worsen. He welcomed China’s easing of some Covid rules.
Georgieva added that talks with China over debt relief for developing nations were “fruitful” and she sees the potential for more systematic debt treatment going forward.
