Cumulative per capita income projected to drop by 18% in low-income countries, 22% in developing countries: IMF

  • Date: 25-Feb-2021
  • Source: Ahram
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Gulf
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Cumulative per capita income projected to drop by 18% in low-income countries, 22% in developing countries: IMF

Cumulative per capita income is expected to decrease by 18 percent for low-income countries and by 22 percent for emerging and developing countries excluding China, according to the Managing Director of the International Monetary (IMF) Fund Kristalina Georgieva.

Georgieva made her comments on Wednesday on the occasion of the G-20 group meeting that is anticipated to be held in the current week.

She said that the projected hit to per capita income will increase by millions the number of extremely poor people in the developing world.

"Convergence between countries can no longer be taken for granted. Before the crisis, we forecast that income gaps between advanced economies and 110 emerging and developing countries would narrow over 2020-22. But we now estimate that only 52 economies will be catching up during that period, while 58 are set to fall behind,“ said Georgieva.

Georgieva attributed this to the uneven access to vaccines, adding that even in the best-case scenario, most developing economies are expected to reach widespread vaccine coverage only by the end of 2022 or beyond, while some are especially exposed to hard-hit sectors such as tourism and oil exports, and most of them are hindered by the limited space