The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its global economic growth forecast for 2023.
It said that global GDP would likely grow by 2.8% in 2023 and 3% in 2024. The IMF had previously said that growth would be slightly higher in 2023 and 2024, with its new forecast cutting growth by 0.1 percentage point for both years.
The IMF said that new lower growth forecasts were because of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse, which meant there were broader concerns around global economic financial stability.
The IMF’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, was quoted as saying: ‘The risks are weighted heavily to the downside, in large part because of the financial turmoil of the last month-and-a-half That is under control now, but we are concerned that this could result in a sharper and a more elevated downturn if financial conditions were to worsen significantly.’
A few weeks ago the IMF slashed its forecast for economic growth for South Africa to 0.1% for 2023, down from 1.2%.