Developing economies to lag by 5% by ’24: Gopinath

DAVOS: Advanced economies will be back on track by 2024, but developing economies will be 5% below where they would have been otherwise, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday.

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

The war in Ukraine has been a major setback to the global recovery, according to the IMF official.

“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.

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, Gopinath said at a special session on ‘What next for global growth?’ during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022.

There are very divergent recoveries around the world, Gopinath said.

“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% below where they would have been in the absence of the pandemic,” Gopinath said.

The panelists discussed that the recovery from the crisis brought upon by the covid-19 pandemic has been deeply uneven within and between countries, depending largely 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.

CENTRAL BANKS ARE TRYING TO TACKLE THIS HIGH INFLATION AND ARE RAISING INTEREST RATES SHARPLY