The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revealed that it is slightly more optimistic about this year's growth of the global economy and forecasts a rate of 3%, the same as it also estimates for 2024.

According to the updated economic projections released yesterday, entitled "short-term resilience" and "persistent challenges", the Bretton Woods institution has revised its forecast for this year upwards by 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) compared to the April projections, with no change for 2024.

Despite the slight improvement, he warns that the forecast for 2023-24 is still "well below the historical annual average (2000-19) of 3.8%".

According to the IMF, quoted by Lusa, the advanced economies will continue to influence the slowdown in growth from 2022 to 2023, with weaker industrial production, as well as idiosyncratic factors, offset by stronger services activity.

In emerging markets and developing economies, the growth outlook is broadly stable for 2023 and 2024, although there are changes between regions.

The IMF explains that the rise in central bank reference rates to combat inflation continues to weigh on economic activity and expects global inflation to fall from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.8% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024.

Underlying ('core') inflation is expected to fall more gradually and forecasts for inflation in 2024 have been revised upwards.