IMF: Global economy’s

WASHINGTON — The global economy’s recovery from the pandemic recession is tentative and uneven and “marked by significant uncertainty” as confirmed coronavirus cases spread in many countries, international finance ministers warned Thursday.

The policy-setting panel of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund concluded a virtual meeting on Thursday with a joint statement that warned of permanent damage from the worst global downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s unless countries are given further economic support.

“The crisis threatens to leave long-lasting scars on the global economy, such as weaker productivity growth, heavier debt burdens, heightened financial vulnerabilities and higher poverty and inequality,” the IMF panel said.

“This is a crisis like no other,” Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said at a closing news conference.

“It calls for steps to enable a recovery like no other.”

The IMF’s communique said it was committed to supporting “the most vulnerable countries and people”.

It endorsed a six-month extension of a suspension on debt payments that was approved Wednesday by the Group of 20 major industrial countries.

The IMF panel urged the G-20 to go further and adopt at a meeting next month a framework for managing the crushing debt burdens of many low-income countries.

International aid groups say rich nations should not merely suspend debt payments but forgive large chunks of debt that are leaving poor countries unable to devote their limited resources to health care and other urgent needs during the pandemic.

The fall meetings of the IMF and its sister lending organisation, the World Bank, were held virtually against a grim backdrop of the damage the pandemic has inflicted on the world.

In its economic outlook, the IMF forecast that global growth would shrink 4.4 per cent this year, which would mark the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

And the World Bank forecast that the pandemic could send an additional 114 million people into extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the international aid