IMF cuts global growth forecast to 3.6% citing Russia-Ukraine war

IMF cuts global growth forecast to 3.6% citing Russia-Ukraine war

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded the outlook for the world economy this year and next, blaming Russia’s war in Ukraine for disrupting global commerce, pushing up oil prices, threatening food supplies and increasing uncertainty already heightened by the coronavirus and its variants. The 190-country lender cut its forecast for global growth to 3.6 percent this year, a steep falloff from 6.1 percent last year and from the 4.4 percent growth it had expected for 2022 back in January. It also said it expects the world economy to grow 3.6 percent again next year, slightly slower than the 3.8 percent it forecast in January. The war — and the darkening outlook — came just as the global economy appeared to be shaking off the impact of the highly infectious omicron variant. “In the matter of a few weeks, the world has yet again experienced a major, transformative shock,’’ IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas wrote in the foreword to the fund’s World Economic Outlook report. “Just as a durable recovery from the pandemic-induced global economic collapse appeared in sight, the war has created the very real prospect that a large part of the recent gains will be erased.” Now,