The International Monetary Fund retained its growth outlook for both Nigeria and the global economy for the year 2021, stating that the global economy is projected to grow 6.0 percent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022, while Nigeria’s growth outlook has been maintained at 2.5% for the period.
The IMF disclosed this on Tuesday in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) for July titled “Fault Lines Widen in the Global Recovery.”
What the IMF said
“Economic prospects have diverged further across countries since the April 2021 World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast.
Vaccine access has emerged as the principal fault line along which the global recovery splits into two blocs: those that can look forward to further normalization of activity later this year (almost all advanced economies) and those that will still face resurgent infections and rising COVID death tolls. The recovery, however, is not assured even in countries where infections are currently very low so long as the virus circulates elsewhere,” they said.
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“Prospects for emerging market and developing economies have been marked down for 2021, especially for Emerging Asia. By contrast, the forecast for advanced economies is revised up,” they added.
They also stated that “better global cooperation on vaccines could help prevent renewed waves of infection and the emergence of new variants, end the health crisis sooner than assumed, and allow for faster normalisation of activity, particularly among emerging market and developing economies.
Moreover, a sooner-than-anticipated end to the health crisis could lead to a faster than-expected release of excess savings by households, higher confidence and more front-loaded investment spending by firms.”
For 2022, IMF says it forecasts Nigeria’s economy to grow by 2.6% and South Africa’s by 2.2%.
In case you missed it
Nairametrics reported in April that the International Monetary Fund lifted its global growth outlook to 6% in 2021 (0.5% point upgrade) and 4.4% in 2022 (0.2 percentage point upgrade), after an estimated historic contraction of -3.3% in 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, forecasting that Nigeria is expected to grow by 2.5% in 2021 and 2.3% by 2022, while South Africa is projected to hit growths of 3.1% and 2.0% for the respective years in focus.
