<The Anchor> The

International Monetary Fund's IMF further lowered Korea's economic growth forecast this year from -1.2% to -2.1%. The IMF said the economic downturn was even more severe than expected, lowering its forecast for global economic growth to -4.9%, 2 percentage points lower than two months ago.

This is reporter Kim Hye-min.

<Reporter> The

International Monetary Fund's IMF projected Korea's economic growth rate to be -2.1% this year in the World Economic Outlook in June.

It was 0.9 percentage points lower from the -1.2% forecast in April, and according to this forecast, Korea will have the lowest growth rate since the currency crisis of -5.1% in 1998.

Global economic growth forecasts have been further lowered.

Last April, it dropped 1.9 percentage points from -3% to -4.9%.

Also, among the major countries, the United States is expected to grow -8%, Japan -5.8%, Germany -7.8%, France -12.5%, China 1%, India -4.5%.

The IMF diagnosed the economic downturn as much worse than expected and a crisis beyond any other.

[Other Gopinus/IMF chief economist: Compared to the global economic outlook for April, we expect this year's economic recession to worsen and recover more slowly

next year .] Next year's global economic growth rate is US 4.5%, EU 6%, etc.

I also predicted that the Korean economy will grow 3%.

From the second half of this year, it can be recovered more rapidly through gradual economic recovery, but warned that the economic recovery may be slower due to the'second corona19 pandemic' early next year.