The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday warned that the global economic growth this year would fall below last year’s levels, urging countries to spend significant resources to manage the epidemic. “We, unfortunately, over the last week, have seen a shift to a more adverse scenario for the global economy,” the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva told reporters on Wednesday. “Under any scenario, we see growth in 2020 falling below the level of 2019,” she added. Georgieva indicated that how far it will fall and for how long, will not only depend on the coronavirus epidemic, but also on the quality, timeliness, and effectiveness of policy actions. The IMF in January had estimated 2019 global growth at 2.9 percent and 2020 growth at 3.3 percent. In February, the Fund said the outbreak could shave 0.1 percentage point from 2020 growth. IMF will again revise its forecasts downward in the coming weeks. IMF said China, the world’s second largest economy, and the first place where the outbreak began, had resumed production activities. “For China, we have heard from Chinese authorities encouraging restart of production. At the moment, they report 60 percent restart and they expect in the next weeks to go up to 90 per cent,” the IMF chief said. “This is welcome news for China and the world,” she noted. IMF said it could quickly disburse $50bn through its emergency financing facilities to low income and emerging markets that don’t require full-fledged IMF programmes. Africa The international lender highlighted that it had done analysis which informed their choice to focus its priority on low income countries, especially those in Africa. According to Georgieva, analysis conducted by the IMF showed such countries have weak health systems, exposure to price shocks because of commodity export orientation, vulnerability due to spillover effect from other countries, and limited fiscal space. “It is unfortunately clear from this analysis that Sub Saharan Africa presents particularly important area of focus. We do have up to 10 billion available for low income countries to tap in with zero interest rates,” she noted. “Obviously, we prioritise countries in Africa that have already been faced with difficulties,” she added. Georgieva insisted that in times of uncertainty “like now with the Coronavirus, it is better to lean forward than to lean back.” “It is better to do more than not do more – applies to health systems, policy measures and working capital,” she said. The World Bank on Tuesday, March 3 announced a financial package of $12 billion to assist countries coping with the health and economic impacts of the global outbreak. The Bank’s President David Malpass said the funding will help to curb Coronavirus particularly through providing technical assistance like laboratory equipment, gloves, masks, portable ventilators, and quarantine facilities. “Those are core parts of the package we announced yesterday,” he said, adding that the world needs a system for community real time disease monitoring.
