The IMF expects to maintain global growth estimates at 2.7% in 2023

Baghdad-INA

The Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, expects that the fund will not reduce its forecast for global economic growth of 2.7% in 2023, noting that fears about high oil prices have not materialized, and that labor markets are still strong .

Georgieva said that 2023 will be another "difficult year" for the global economy, and that inflation is still rampant, but she does not expect another year of successive cuts in growth forecasts like she witnessed last year, unless unexpected developments occur .

"Growth continues to slow in 2023, and the most positive part of the picture is the resilience of labor markets... as long as people work, even if prices are high, they will spend and that helps performance, " she told reporters at the fund's headquarters in Washington.

She added that the IMF does not expect any significant cuts in growth forecasts, saying: "This is the good news ."

And she also stated that the fund expects the slowdown in global growth to reach its “extreme” before “turning to an increase by the end of 2023 and in 2024. ”

She added that there is a lot of hope that China, which previously contributed about 35 to 40 percent of global growth, but achieved "disappointing" results last year, will contribute again to global growth, probably from mid-2023 .

Georgieva explained that this depends on Beijing not changing course and sticking to its plans to change its zero Covid policy .

She said the United States, the world's largest economy, was likely to suffer only a moderate recession, if it actually entered a technical recession .

But Georgieva stressed that there is still a great deal of uncertainty, including a major cyber attack or the risk of an escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine, through the use of nuclear weapons, for example .