The institution installed in Washington revises strongly down the expected growth in the United States, China and Germany, three great economies of the planet.
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The global recovery is less fast than expected. In an update of its forecasts, published on Tuesday, January 25, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) table on an increase in gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.5% in 2022, down 0.5 points compared to His latest projections of October 2021, because of a shortness of breath of the two great economies of the planet, China and the United States.
This downward correction is not only related to the diffusion of the Omicron Variant, the effect of which should fade from the second quarter, but to “other challenges” which should have a “impact more impact” important “, according to a blog note published Tuesday by the Chief Economist of the Institution Gita Gopinath, namely” disturbances of supply chains “, an” rising inflation “and a” record debt “which reduces the margins of maneuver of states.
In 2022, Chinese growth should almost fall from half compared to 2021, at 4.8%, a drop of 0.8 points compared to the latest IMF’s latest forecasts, which is justified by invoking the difficulties the real estate sector, the gloom of domestic demand and the numerous disturbances related to the Zero Covid strategy. At the slightest suspect case, factories, ports or entire cities of China are confined. However, sporadic containments are multiplying given the strong contagiousness of the Omicron variant and the low efficiency of vaccines developed by the laboratories of the country.
Added to this are the energy shortages that put factories at the stop, and the difficulties of the real estate and construction sector that contributed so far to about 30% of the country’s GDP. “A more general slowdown in China will affect global growth prospects, through emerging countries and commodity exporters,” writes the IMF. Chinese domestic demand is at the same time in Bern, which deprives exporters from around the world of an important outlet.
Global logistics system dictated by the “just in time”
The confines in China also disturb supply chains. At the beginning of January, freight terminals were temporarily closed in Ningbo, the third container port in the world, and the factories of Volkswagen and Toyota closed for several days in Tianjin, port city of 14 million inhabitants. The IMF recalls that supply chains have been disrupted by an explosion of demand for manufactured goods and transportation problems in a global logistics system dictated by the “just in time”. They would have cost the global economy in 2021 between 0.5 and 1 growth point, while accelerating inflation from an additional point. This led the IMF also lower 0.8 points for Germany’s growth forecasts that should finally cap at 3.8% in 2022.
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