I.M.F. Sticks With 6 Percent Global Growth Forecast

The global economic recovery continues, but with a widening gap between advanced economies and many emerging market and developing economies. Our latest global growth forecast of 6 percent for this year is unchanged from the previous outlook, but the composition has changed. Growth prospects for advanced economies this year have improved by half a percentage point, but this is offset exactly by a downward revision for emerging market and developing economies, driven by a significant downgrade for emerging Asia. For 2022, we project global growth of 4.9 percent, up from our previous forecast of 4.4 percent. But again, underlying this is a sizable upgrade for advanced economies, and a more modest one for emerging market and developing economies. There still remains highly inequitable access to vaccines. There have been about 3 and half billion shots in arms so far, but most of them have gone to a few countries, and you have many low-income countries and developing countries where even health workers haven’t been fully vaccinated. Faster-than-expected vaccination rates and return to normalcy have left upgrades, while renewed waves of Covid-19 cases in some countries, notably India, have led to downgrades.