Gopinath predicts skewed economic growth globally

Advanced economies will be back on track by 2024, but developing economies will be 5 per cent below where they would have been otherwise, IMF’s Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday.

Economies worldwide have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and are slowly coming back into the recovery path.

The first deputy MD of the International Monetary Fund said the war in Ukraine has been a major setback to the global recovery.

“We had a serious downgrade to the global growth rate and the world continues to face headwinds because we have a cost of living crisis. Prices of commodities including fuel and food are going up around the world,” she said.

Gopinath said central banks are trying to tackle this high level of inflation and are raising interest rates sharply, which they need to do, but that will also have consequences for global finance and trade. She was speaking at a special session on ‘What next for global growth?’ during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022.

We had a serious downgrade to the global growth rate and the world continues to face headwinds because we have a cost of living crisis. Prices of commodities including fuel and food are going up around the world — Gita Gopinath,

First deputy MD, International Monetary Fund

Gopinath said there are very divergent recoveries around the world.

“While advanced economies, as per our estimates, will basically get back to where they would have been in absence of pandemic in 2024, but emerging and developing economies would be 5 per cent below where they would have been in the absence of the pandemic,” she said.

The panelists discussed that the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis has been deeply uneven within and between countries, depending on their access to fiscal resources and vaccines. As food, fuel and resource crises now risk further derailing an equitable recovery, they discussed how a broader set of foundations for growth can ensure long-term economic prosperity and a return to international convergence.

While government debt levels are climbing around the world, with debt burdens in emerging markets rising rapidly, so far there is not evidence of a systemic debt crisis, but there are risks ahead, Gopinath said. “As yet we do not see a systemic sovereign debt crisis,” she said, but the risk ahead is “salient.”