An empty platform pictured during a one-day wage strike of the public transport sector at Berlin's main central station Hauptbahnhof on March 27, 2023. (Photo: CFP)
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund's spring meetings get underway later this week with an ambitious reform and fundraising agenda likely to be overshadowed by concerns over high inflation, rising geopolitical tension and financial stability.
"Growth remains historically weak -— now and in the medium term," IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said during a speech last week.
The fund now expects global growth to fall below three percent this year, and to remain at close to three percent for the next half a decade -- its lowest medium-term prediction since the 1990s.
Close to 90 percent of the world's advanced economies will experience slowing growth this year, while Asia's emerging markets are expected to see a substantial rise in economic output -- with India and China predicted to account for half of all growth, she said.
Low-income countries are expected to suffer a double shock from higher borrowing costs and a decline in demand for their exports, which Georgieva said could fuel poverty and hunger to increase.
Updated growth projections published in the IMF's World Economic Outlook on Tuesday will provide a broader look at how different countries are coping, with additional publications to detail fiscal and financial challenges to the global economy.
