The Fund's latest estimates predict that inflation will remain soaring for longer than previously anticipated, and it warned that there is a growing risk that market inflation expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and more difficult to control.
EFE Washington
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its growth forecasts for 143 countries due to the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which represents an impact on 86% of global gross domestic product (GDP), as announced Thursday by the Fund's director, Kristalina Georgieva.
In a speech ahead of the start of the annual spring meeting that the organization will hold together with the World Bank next week, Georgieva warned that the future of the economy is "extraordinarily uncertain" because of war, sanctions and Covid-19.
Despite the drop in forecasts, the managing director of the international financial institution assured that most countries will remain in positive territory.
The IMF will publish next Tuesday, as part of its assembly, updated and detailed economic projections by region and country for 2022, 2023 and 2024.
"We are experiencing one crisis on top of another," Georgieva pointed out, referring to the outbreak of war when the world had not yet emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to these two factors, the economist also cited the "danger" of extremely high inflation - very high in developed countries, but even higher in some developing countries - and the growing fragmentation of the world's economies into two geopolitical blocs: democracies and authoritarian regimes.
The Fund's latest estimates predict that inflation will remain soaring for longer than previously anticipated, and it warned that there is a growing risk that market inflation expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and more difficult to control.
The IMF also pointed to a number of countries where rising food prices will have a particularly large effect, including Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
