The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become more optimistic about the prospects for the world economy and expects that this year it will grow by 5.5 percent. However, there are still risks for sustainable development, among them the emergence of new strains of coronavirus, reports CNBC.
While vaccinations have begun in many countries, the IMF is concerned about the risk that new COVID-19 variants pose to recovery from the pandemic. “Much now depends on the outcome of this race between the mutating virus and vaccines,” said the foundation’s chief economist, Gita Gopinath. There is still a lot of uncertainty and the outlook for each country is very different.
The IMF has lowered its forecast for the eurozone: the region’s economy this year will grow by only 4.2 percent. Economic activity in the region slowed down in the last quarter of 2020, and the trend will continue in the first half of 2021. The IMF also does not expect the euro area to return to late 2019 levels by the end of 2022.
The forecast for the United States, on the contrary, has been changed upwards: GDP there should grow 5.1 percent, and China’s growth is projected to exceed 8 percent. As for Russia, then, as indicated in the IMF, the country’s economy is expected to grow by 3 percent instead of 2.8 percent predicted by it in October. Growth of 3.9 percent is expected in 2022, TASS notes.
Earlier, the World Health Organization warned that the damage to the world economy from the so-called vaccine nationalism could amount to $ 9.2 trillion. The WHO indicated that every day the gap between countries is growing, and if you do not take action, a disaster could occur.