IMF sees Bulgaria’s economy bouncing back 4.4% this year
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Bulgaria’s economy to grow by 4.4 per cent this year and in 2022, according to its latest World Economic Outlook report.
The Fund raised its forecast, having previously projected 4.1 per cent growth in the October 2020 report.
Overall, the report forecast the global economy would grow by six per cent in 2021, compared to 5.2 per cent growth forecast in its previous report, before slowing down to 4.4 per cent in 2022.
The higher growth projections for 2021 and 2022 reflected “additional fiscal support in a few large economies and the anticipated vaccine-powered recovery in the second half of the year,” the IMF said.
After that initial rebound from the contraction caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, global growth was expected to gradually slow to about 3.3 per cent in the medium term.
This was due to “projected damage to supply potential and forces that predate the pandemic, including aging-related slower labor force growth in advanced economies and some emerging market economies,” the Fund said, but noted that “thanks to unprecedented policy response, the Covid-19 recession is likely to leave smaller scars than the 2008 global financial crisis.”
The IMF said that the global outlook was still clouded by high uncertainty: “Beyond the usual set of idiosyncratic shocks that normally beset all forecasting exercises, future developments will depend on the path of the pandemic, policy actions, the evolution of financial conditions and commodity prices, and the capacity of the economy to adjust to health-related impediments to activity.”
(Photo: Bruno Sanchez-Andrade)
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