The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the world economy is facing the slowest growth since 1990 in the next five years.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva presented the gloomy outlook on Thursday at an event in Washington ahead of next week's annual IMF-World Bank meeting.
The head of the IMF said that world economic growth is expected to remain around 3% over the next five years, describing it as the weakest medium-term growth forecast since 1990.
Last year, global growth nearly halved to 3.4%, following a post-pandemic surge in 2021. It was below the 3.8% annual growth average of the past two decades.
For this year, the IMF projects the economy to shrink below 3%, with India and China accounting for more than half of that growth.
About 90% of developed economies are expected to experience a decline in growth due to higher borrowing cost burdens following aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks to combat inflation.
As for low-income countries, higher borrowing costs will lead to weak demand for their exports.
In its January report on growth in 2023, the IMF revised its global growth estimate to 2.9%. The updated world economic outlook will be released next Tuesday.
