(Washington) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slightly lowered its global growth forecast for 2023, but expects major economic regions to avoid recession, according to data released Tuesday at its meetings. spring meetings.
The institution now anticipates global growth of 2.8% in 2023, down slightly from its previous estimate in January (-0.1 percentage point).
“We are facing an economy that continues to recover from the various shocks of recent years, in particular of course the pandemic, but also the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And we are seeing a gradual recovery,” explained IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas during a press conference.
However, the situation could have been darker had it not been for the effects of the reopening in China and the acceleration of Indian growth, which “will contribute half of global growth in 2023”, the Fund’s Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, pointed out on Thursday. from an interview with AFP.
For most countries, a return to normal is not yet in sight. In particular, inflation should remain high in 2023, around 7% worldwide. Above all, core inflation – excluding food and energy prices, which are more fluctuating by nature – remains poorly oriented.
Added to this are the recent upheavals in the financial sector, particularly in the United States, after the bankruptcy of three regional banks, and the hasty takeover of Credit Suisse by its competitor UBS, against a backdrop of rate hikes by central banks. , precisely to fight against inflation.
“ Risks have once again weighed heavily on growth, largely due to the financial turbulence of recent weeks ”, underlined Mr. Gourinchas.
Despite everything, the IMF is revising its growth forecasts for the United States upwards in 2023, to 1.6% (0.2 points), as well as for 2024, to 1.1% (0.1 points).
This forecast remains unchanged for France for 2023, at 0.7%, but is down slightly for 2024, at 1.3% (-0.3 points).
The euro zone could do better than initially expected (0.1 point) in 2023, at 0.8%, under the effect of higher growth in Spain and Italy.
Forecasts are also improving in the United Kingdom, which should however end the year in recession, as expected since last October, but at -0.3% while the IMF was still forecasting -0.6% in January.
Germany is still flirting with recession: expected to show slight growth over the current year last January (0.1%), the leading European economy is now expected to decline slightly (-0.1%).
However, German industry should notably benefit from the economic recovery of its main customer, China, since the reopening of its economy, after the abandonment of its strict zero-COVID-19 policy at the beginning of the year.
The German government and the institutes also believe that the country should avoid recession, with growth expected at 0.2% for the government, 0.3% for the main German institutes.
Chinese growth will once again play a driving role in global growth for 2023, at 5.2%, but will slow down from 2024, to 4.5%, one of its weakest growth rates in the last 30 years, outside of China. 2020 with the pandemic, and 2022 with the zero-COVID-19 policy.
Here again, the signs of weakness are present and encourage the IMF to be cautious in its forecasts.
“There are concerns about the local real estate market, for example. But there are also more global risks, in particular that the war will once again push up the price of raw materials”, explained Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
Russia, in particular, benefits from this commodity market, and, while six months ago, a severe recession was announced there, the economy should, according to the IMF, progress by 0.7% this year and 1.3 % in 2024, despite the sanctions imposed by Western economic powers.
This is explained by “ the trend observed in the second half of last year. But a tightening of trade conditions could lead to a significant decline in tax revenues and the current account ” and cause a slowdown in the economy, a spokesperson for the Fund told AFP.
For 2024, the IMF does not change its forecast for global growth, at 3.0%.
But without triumphalism, as Kristalina Georgieva recalled: “ we expect growth of around 3% over the next five years, our weakest medium-term outlook since 1990”.
