The world economy risks losing $4.5tn (£3.3tn) from highly infectious variants of Covid-19 spreading through poor countries where vaccination rates are lower, the International Monetary Fund has warned. In recent months, the IMF has joined the World Health Organization, the World Bank and World Trade Organization in urging the wider deployment of vaccines across the developing world. Despite the unchanged global forecast, the fund upgraded its 2021 growth estimates for advanced economies by 0.5 percentage points, but revised down its forecasts for developing countries by 0.4 percentage points. Sign up to the daily Business Today emailNext year, the IMF expects the outlook to improve from its previous forecast for global growth of 4.4% to a fresh prediction of 4.9%. However, this growth rate will also be marked by a stronger performance from the advanced economies and a slower growth rate among most emerging market and developing economies.

Source: The Guardian July 27, 2021 13:19 UTC