"A new variant that could spread very quickly can shake confidence and in that sense we will likely see downward revisions to our October projections for global growth," Kristalina Georgieva said at a conference. Reuters Next.

In October, the IMF had already revised down its growth forecast for global gross domestic product to 5.9% this year against 6% in July, due to logistical problems and because of an uneven vaccination.

For 2022, the IMF was then counting on world growth unchanged at 4.9%.

Since October, the IMF has already hinted that growth could be less sustained than expected as bottlenecks in supply chains are not resolved, causing inflationary pressure around the world.

"Even before the arrival of this new variant, we feared that the recovery, although it is continuing, may lose some of its momentum", recognized Mrs Georgieva on Friday.

The headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington on April 5, 2021 MANDEL NGAN AFP / Archives

She further pointed out that the growth of the world's two largest economies, the United States and China, the engines of the global recovery, had already been held back by the Delta variant which spread in late summer and autumn.

The IMF usually publishes revisions to its forecasts from October to January.

Omicron, a highly mutated version of the coronavirus, was first reported in South Africa on November 24 and is now present in several dozen countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently has no information on a possible death linked to the new variant Omicron, said a spokesperson for the organization in Geneva.

But as a precaution, many countries have already implemented new travel restrictions.

And with an expected deterioration in consumer confidence, many economists expect the economic recovery to slow.

The OECD itself this week urged states to step up the pace of dose distribution in order to stem the pandemic.

According to UN statistics, around 65% of people in more developed countries have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared to just 7% in less developed countries.

The IMF's chief economist, Gita Gopinath has been hammering it for months: "the pandemic is not over anywhere, as long as it is not over everywhere".

© 2021 AFP