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A day after calling for billions of dollars in grants to bolster pandemic preparedness and notifying that the world needs to be preparing for downside scenarios relating to Covid-19, the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath on Friday shared the the Global Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers' Index).
This comes ahead of IMF updating global economic-growth forecasts, as it is set to publish the results in its World Economic Outlook scheduled for April 19. IMF in January said the global economy would expand 4.4% this year, down from an estimate of 4.9% in October.
Gopinath tweeted, "after a few months of improvement the latest data points to renewed pressure on supply chains and input prices. Hoping this is short-lived."
Earlier on Thursday, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said in an interview with Lisa Abramowicz and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television, “what I’m worried about is that everybody’s hoping for the best-case scenario, which is that this is a mild, endemic virus -- but what the experts tell us is that we could have much worse downside scenarios, and we need to prepare for that and that’s the part where I think more needs to be done."
Additionally, Gopinath repeated the fund’s call earlier this month for additional funding to fight pandemics and to strengthen health systems, saying this would require about $15 billion in grants this year and $10 billion annually after that.
“What is true is that we will have a significant downgrade to our growth projection," Gopinath said, citing the effects of hot inflation, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine as reasons for the cut.
(With inputs from agencies)
