Monday, March 18, 2024
Perfil

ECONOMY | 25-06-2020 01:16

IMF predicts Argentina's economy will slump 9.9% in 2020

Warning of the biggest slump since the Great Depression, International Monetary Fund warns coronavirus crisis will sink global economy in 2020, predicts global collapse in GDP of 4.9%.

The global coronavirus pandemic has sparked an economic "crisis like no other," the International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday, predicting that world GDP would plunge by 4.9 percent and Argentina's own economy by 9.9 percent.

The IMF said the virus crisis would wipe out US$12 trillion over two years, with Latin America's economies set to be some of the hardest hit, with Brazil’s economy now expected to shrink 9.1 percent and Mexico’s by 10.5 percent. For 2021, the Fund sees global growth of 5.4 percent, down from 5.8 percent.

Having already warned of the biggest slump since the Great Depression, the IMF said its increased pessimism reflected scarring from a larger-than-anticipated supply shock during the earlier lockdown, in addition to the continued hit to demand from social distancing and other safety measures. For nations struggling to control the virus spread, a longer lockdown also will take a toll on growth, the IMF said.

Latin America has been one of the world's worst hotspots for weeks, and the number of deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean surpassed 100,000 on Wednesday. Brazil was the hardest-hit country, with its new cases surpassing even the United States – over 42,700 recorded Wednesday.

"The curve in Brazil is still rising sharply. We're still in the first wave," said Domingos Alves, a professor of medicine at the University of São Paulo and member of a scientific committee monitoring the crisis.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the global number of cases would reach 10 million within the next week, after four million cases were recorded just in the last month. The global figure currently stands at over 9.3 million.

"We have an urgent responsibility to do everything we can with the tools we have now to suppress transmission and save lives," he said.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan warned that the pandemic had not yet reached its peak in the Americas.

He said it was "particularly intense in Central and South America" where many countries saw "between a 25 and 50 percent rise in cases over the last week," and added that "the spectre of further lockdowns cannot be excluded."

Globally, the number of Covid-19 deaths surged past 480,000 after doubling in less than two months, according to an AFP tally.

IMF warning

Worldwide business shutdowns have destroyed hundreds of millions of jobs, and major economies in Europe face double-digit collapses in the worst crisis since the Great Depression nearly a century ago.

The prospects for recovery post-pandemic – like the forecasts themselves – are steeped in "pervasive uncertainty" given the unpredictable path of the virus, the IMF said in its updated World Economic Outlook report issued Wednesday.

"The Covid-19 pandemic has had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of 2020 than anticipated, and the recovery is projected to be more gradual than previously forecast," the fund warned.

While businesses are reopening in many countries and China has seen a bigger rebound in activity than expected, a second wave of viral infections threatens the outlook, the report said.

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said under current forecasts, the crisis will destroy US$12 trillion over two years, and cautioned, "we are not out of the woods." She warned governments against withdrawing the stimulus too quickly.

"This is a crisis that requires all hands on deck," she told reporters. While governments and central banks have gone to extraordinary lengths so far to provide support for workers and businesses, "more will be needed."

"It's important not to back off very quickly, but to do so only gradually, because this crisis is not over," Gopinath said.

The downturn is particularly damaging for low-income countries and households, and threatens to endanger the progress made on reducing extreme poverty, the Washington-based crisis lender said in its report.

The fund made drastic downward revisions to most of the April forecasts made in the early days of the pandemic, and IMF economists fear the coronavirus will leave lasting scars on employment, businesses and trade.

Hanging over the predictions are the bills for massive government stimulus plans, fuelled by extremely low interest rates and likely preventing the recession from turning into another depression, even as they created huge and ever-increasing debt levels.

Drastic, downward revisions

The damage is nonetheless stunning, and more widespread than any downturn in recent decades.

China will eke out growth of one percent this year, the only positive figure on the long list of key economies the IMF tracks.

The United States will shrink eight percent and Germany slightly less, while France, Italy, Spain and Britain will suffer double-digit contractions. Japan makes out a bit better with a drop of just 5.8 percent, according to the forecasts.

Mexico also will see a double-digit decline, while Brazil just misses that mark, as does Argentina, which is in the middle of a massive debt crunch on top of its health and economic crises after the country once again defaulted on its foreign obligations.

The IMF pointed to International Labour Organisation data estimating more than 300 million jobs were lost in the second quarter of the year.

"A more prolonged decline in activity could lead to further scarring, including from wider firm closures, as surviving firms hesitate to hire jobseekers after extended unemployment," the fund warned.

With transport and manufacturing shut down for weeks, the IMF projects global trade volume will collapse by just under 12 percent – and advanced economies will see an even more dramatic drop.

The IMF also warned of dangers posed by eroding relations between and within countries.

"Beyond pandemic-related downside risks, escalating tensions between the United States and China on multiple fronts, frayed relationships among the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) coalition of oil producers and widespread social unrest pose additional challenges to the global economy," the report said.

Trade disruptions could undermine productivity as firms shift supply chains to try to protect themselves against future breakdowns, and companies also face higher costs as they adopt enhanced cleaning procedures and social distancing requirements.

Amid the uncertainty, there is a chance the recession could be less severe than forecast, the report said.

"Downside risks, however, remain significant," it warned.

– TIMES/AFP/BLOOMBERG

Comments

More in (in spanish)