The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to maintain its growth forecast of 2.7 percent for 2023.
"Growth will continue to slow in 2023," International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters at the IMF's Washington headquarters on Thursday (local time).
Difficult year expected
2023 will be another difficult year for the global economy and inflation will remain stubborn, but she does not expect consecutive downgrades like last year barring unexpected developments.
The IMF believes the slowdown in global growth will bottom out and reverse in late 2023 and early 2024.
Georgieva noted that fears of an oil price hike have not materialized and labor markets remain strong.
"The positive lies in the resilience of the labor markets." As long as people are employed, they spend money despite high prices.
That helped the economy.
However, there are still major uncertainties, including a major climate event, a major cyber attack or the risk of an escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine, for example through the use of nuclear weapons.
"We are now in a world that is more prone to crises and we have to be open to the fact that there could be risks that we are not even thinking about," said the IMF chief.
“We have seen that in recent years.
The unthinkable happened twice.”