However, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown all these predictions out of the window as the world deals with this health crisis. As at Dec 9, there have been 68 million confirmed cases and some 1.6 million deaths around the world. “This is a crisis like no other,” said IMF’s economic chancellor Gita Gopinath in April. Since then, the macroeconomic watchdog has revised its forecast of global GDP for 2020 to a 3.5% contraction.
2020 was said to be a year of recovery, but the virus had other plans
The year 2020 was not just meant to mark the start of a new decade; it was expected to be a year of recovery for the global economy which had been weighed down by uncertainties such as the US-China trade war and shifting supply chains. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of 2019, global GDP growth was to pick up from 2.9% that year to 3.3% this year and a further 3.5% in 2021.
