Washington: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Kristalina Georgieva has said that the world economy is expected to grow less than 3 percent this year. Last year the economy was scaling high at 3.4 percent.

Georgieva’s comments at a Politico event at the Meridian International Centre come ahead of next week’s spring meetings of the IMF and its sister lending agency, the World Bank, in Washington,

This will increase the risk of hunger and poverty globally.

Georgieva said that the growth is expected to remain around 3 percent for the next five years, calling it our lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990 and well below the average of 3.8 percent from the past two decades.

The annual gathering will take place as central banks around the world continue to raise interest rates to tame persistent inflation and as an ongoing debt crisis in emerging economies pushes debt burdens higher, preventing nations from growing.

The IMF head said persistently high interest rates, a series of bank failures in the US and Europe, and deepening geopolitical divisions are threatening global financial stability.

Georgieva said that countries have thus far been “resilient climbers” out of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed almost 6.9 million people globally, according to the World Health Organisation, and has disrupted global supply chains and exacerbated worldwide food insecurity.

But advanced economies face the challenges of high inflation and poorer nations are burdened by debt, all as the United States, the European Union and others are rethinking their trade relationships with China.

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