© Reuters / Yuri Gripas
The International Monetary Fund is poised to cut its global growth forecast for 2022 as a result of the war in Ukraine, and sees recession risks in a growing number of countries, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.
The world economy is still set to expand in 2022, though
by less than the 4.4% previously anticipated, Georgieva said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine broadcast Tuesday. The IMF is set to update its projections in April when the fund holds its annual spring meetings.
"Some economies that have been fast to recover from Covid are in a stronger position" to cope with the reverberations from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Georgieva said. The U.S. in particular has "fairly strong fundamentals," she said.
"But those that were not yet coming out of the Covid crisis, that were falling further behind,
they're going to be hit even harder," with the "possible risk of recessions."
Tighter financial conditions,
as the Federal Reserve and other developed-world central banks raise interest rates, will be a "big shock" for many countries, according to Georgieva. About
60% of low-income countries are in "debt distress' or close to it, double the number that the IMF was worried about back in 2015, she said.
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