The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) for July 2022 titled, “Gloomy and More Uncertain”, retained projected economic growth of 3.4 percent for Nigeria in 2022.
The institution disclosed this on Tuesday.
The Washington-based institution had in April, forecast that Nigeria’s economy would grow by 3.4 per cent in 2022 from the 2.7 per cent it earlier predicted.
It explained that the outlook for countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, such as Nigeria, remains unchanged or positive due to elevated fossil fuel and metal prices for some commodity-exporting countries.
The IMF, however, projected that the global economy would slow further to 3.2 per cent in 2022 and 2.9 per cent in 2023.
According to the institution, this is due to global inflation, the war in Ukraine, which has caused widespread hardship as well as an economic slowdown in China — a major global supply chain hub.
“Several shocks have hit a world economy already weakened by the pandemic: higher-than-expected inflation worldwide––especially in the United States and major European economies––triggering tighter financial conditions; a worse-than-anticipated slowdown in China, reflecting COVID- 19 outbreaks and lockdowns; and further negative spillovers from the war in Ukraine.
“The baseline forecast is for growth to slow from 6.1 percent last year to 3.2 percent in 2022, 0.4 percentage points lower than in the April 2022 World Economic Outlook,” the report read.
The IMF further advised countries to adopt policies that would bring inflation under control and reduce food and energy prices.
“Tighter monetary policy will inevitably have real economic costs, but the delay will only exacerbate them,” it added.
