WASHINGTON, DC – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean is projected to decline from an estimated 2.5 percent in 2023 to 1.9 percent this year.
In its its outlook for the world economy this year, envisioning resilient growth led by the United States and a slower pace of inflation, the Washington-based financial institution said that the economic growth in the LAC will rise to 2.5 percent next year “with a downward revision for 2024 of 0.4 percentage point compared with the October 2023 world economic outlook (WEO) projection”.
The IMF said that the forecast revision for the region in 2024 reflects negative growth in Argentina in the context of a significant policy adjustment to restore macroeconomic stability.
Among other major economies in the region, there are upgrades of 0.2 percentage point for Brazil and 0.6 percentage point for Mexico, largely due to carryover effects from stronger-than-expected domestic demand and higher-than-expected growth in large trading-partner economies in 2023, it added.
The IMF that it now expects the global economy to grow 3.1 percent this year, unchanged from 2023 but better than the 2.9 percent it had predicted for 2024 in its previous estimate in October.
Worldwide, the IMF believes inflation will ease from 6.8 percent in 2023 to 5.8 percent in 2024 and 4.4 percent in 2025.
“We are now in the final descent toward a soft landing,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters ahead of the report’s release.
“The biggest challenge ahead of us is to tackle elevated fiscal risks. Most countries came out of the pandemic and energy crisis with higher public debt levels and borrowing costs. Bringing down public debt and deficits will give space to deal with future shocks,” he added.
