2024-07-23 11:12:01
He International Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday kept its global growth forecast for 2024 unchanged, but worsened its forecast for Latin America and of Argentina.
In the third and final update of its annual report, the FMI forecasts global growth of 3.2% this year and slightly improves its forecast for 2025 to 3.3% (+0.1 percentage points).
On the contrary, the economy of Latin America and the Caribbean worsens slightly. It will grow 1.9% this year (-0.1 pp) and 2.7% in 2025, the IMF forecast.
“The region has actually weathered the crisis quite well, as a whole, Covid and subsequent shocks, it has been resilient, so it was also among the first to respond to the pressures inflationary“, he explained in a press conference Petya Koeva Brooks, Deputy Director of Research at the Fund.
“Part of the slowdown we are seeing is actually due to the policies necessary to replenish fiscal reserves and combat inflation“, he added.
The situation varies greatly from country to country.
All eyes are on Argentina, a country where half of the population lives in poverty.
The outlook for this year is bleak, much worse than expectedThe Fund maintains a projection of a 3.5% contraction, as it had anticipated in mid-June, compared with -2.8% predicted in April, and a rebound of 5% by 2025.
The good news for the country, with which the IMF has a credit program for 44 billion dollars, is that inflation continues to fall “very significantly,” said the chief economist of the IMF in a press conference. IMF, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
Brazil, for which it forecasts an expansion of 2.1% (-0.1 pp) this year and 2.4% in 2025, and Mexico (+2.2%, i.e. 0.1 pp less) and 1.6% next year. The downward revision for Brazil in 2024 is due to “the short-term impact of major floods.” /AFP
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2024-07-23 11:12:01