In a report on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund again lowered its global economic forecast as it predicted major slowdowns in the three largest economies: the United States, China and Europe.
The IMF now expects the global economy to grow just 3.2% this year, down from 6.1% in 2021.
Next year is thought to be even worse: just 2.9%, barely above the 2.5% growth level that the IMF generally considers a global recession.
This scenario, the IMF has warned, could trigger an official recession next year, causing global growth to fall further to just 2%. This level of anemic growth has happened only five times since 1970, according to the IMF.
Now, “the outlook has darkened considerably,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of research at the IMF, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. “The world could soon teeter on the brink of a global recession, just two years after the last one.”
The world’s top three economies are all facing stalled activity.
In Europe, the cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been higher than expected, with soaring energy prices, “weaker consumer confidence and slower manufacturing activity resulting from ongoing supply chain disruptions,” the IMF said.
– Julia Horowitz of CNN Business contributed to this report