THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected the world’s second largest economy, China, to see an 8 percent growth this year, down 0.1 percentage point from its July projection.

In its latest update of the World Economic Outlook, the global economy is expected to grow by 5.9 percent in 2021, also slowed 0.1 percentage point from previous one. And that for 2022 is unchanged at 4.9 percent.

The variation of the growth projections for other major economies is more steep. The fund has lowered the growth forecast for the world largest economy, the United States, to 6 percent this year, after raising it up to 7 percent in July.

It ups 2021 eurozone area growth forecast to 5 percent, 0.4 percentage higher than previous.

According to the IMF, “the dangerous divergence in economic prospects across countries remains a major concern.”

“The global recovery continues but momentum has weakened, hobbled by the pandemic,” read the outlook. “Fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, the recorded global COVID-19 death toll has risen close to 5 million and health risks abound, holding back a full return to normalcy.”

To get the global economy back to normal, monetary policies will need to “walk a fine line between tackling inflation and financial risks and supporting the economic recovery,” said IMF.

“We project, amidst high uncertainty, that headline inflation will likely return to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022 for the group of advanced economies and emerging and developing economies.”

(SD-Agencies)