Danger of $4 Trillion Hole in World Outlook Haunts IMF

Global finance chiefs gather in Washington in the coming days with the warning of a possible $4 trillion loss in the world’s economic output ringing in their ears.

That’s the Germany-sized hole in the growth outlook through 2026 that International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva identified last week as a looming risk, Bloomberg said on Sunday.

She’ll play host as central bankers, finance ministers and others confront the fallout on the global economy of rampant inflation, aggressive monetary-policy tightening, rising debt and the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II.

That the IMF and World Bank annual meetings will be fully in-person for the first time since the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020, showing progress in bringing the pandemic to heel, will be of limited comfort given other headaches.

The current confluence of economic, climate and security crises makes it unlike anything global policy makers have seen since 1945. Yet certain elements, such as the emerging-market havoc wreaked by Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes in the early 1980s, chime with the present predicament.

“The big question for the meetings is, ‘What are we going to do in terms of the institutional response to this, beyond business as usual,’” Masood Ahmed, president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development, said last week.

Here’s a quick look at some issues officials will grapple with:

*World Economic Outlook: the IMF releases this on Tuesday. Georgieva said last week that the 2023 global growth forecast of 2.9% will be lowered.

*Ukraine: the country Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded in February will stay in focus, from the impact of a depleted grain harvest to Russia’s gas squeeze on Europe. The IMF board on Friday approved a $1.3 billion loan for Ukraine, its first lending to the nation since early March.

*Food Prices: the IMF board last month approved a new emergency finance “food shock window” to help nations hurt by rising agricultural costs.

*The UK: the country remains vulnerable after market turmoil forced a partial U-turn on a tax-cut package from new Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government that was panned by the IMF.

*The Fed: US tightening is hurting other economies. IMF calculations show 60% of low-income countries and a quarter of emerging markets at or near debt distress.

*Climate: the crisis is only getting worse, as shown recently by disasters from flooding in Pakistan.