The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today revised downwards its forecasts for world economic growth in 2021 by one tenth, to 5.91 qtpy, from 6.01 qtpy in July, says the text of the World Economic Outlook, released today.

For 2022, the July forecast is unchanged, but compared to the April forecast it represents an increase of 0.9 percentage points (0.1 for 2021).

The IMF document quoted by Lusa news agency states that the global recovery continues, but the momentum has weakened, impeded by the pandemic.

"Fuelled by the delta variant, the number of recorded covid-19 deaths has grown by nearly 5 million and health risks abound, holding back a full return to normalcy," the IMF forecast text reads.

The fund also says that, "overall, risks to the economic outlook have increased," leading to the downward revision, by a tenth, to the global outlook, which, however, "masks large downward revisions for some countries." "The downward revision also reflects some more difficult near-term prospects for the group of advanced economies, partly due to supply disruptions," according to the IMF.

Beyond 2022, "world growth should moderate to around 3.3% in the medium term," IMF economists estimate.

The IMF warns, in the document released today, that "the dangerous divergence in economic prospects among countries remains a major concern," stressing that the expected growth for the group of advanced economies "is expected to resume its pre-pandemic trend in 2022 and exceed it by 0.9 percentage points in 2024.

In the most developed economies, growth this year is expected to reach 6%, according to the IMF. In the United States, (5%), in the euro zone, (2.4), in Japan, (6.8%), in the United Kingdom, (5.7%) and in Canada, (5.7%)

As for developing economies, China is expected to grow 8.0% this year and India 9.5%.

"Aggregate output for the group of emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) is expected to remain 5.5% below the pre-pandemic forecast in 2024, resulting in a major step backwards in improving their quality of life," the IMF predicts.

The Washington-based institution also notes that economic divergence "is a consequence of the wide disparity in access to vaccines and in policy support."