THE world economy is slowing in the face of higher interest rates, the ongoing war in Ukraine and widening geopolitical rifts, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned today.

The IMF forecast that global economic growth would slow to 2.9 per cent in 2024 from an expected 3 per cent this year. 

This comes at a time when the world has yet to recover fully from a devastating but short-lived recession sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 

A series of shocks, including the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has slashed worldwide economic output by about $3.7 trillion (£3tn) over the past three years compared with pre-Covid trends.

“We see a global economy that is limping along,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters ahead of IMF and World Bank meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, this week.

The IMF expectation of 3 per cent growth this year is down from 3.5 per cent in 2022 but unchanged from the fund’s July projections.

The Chinese economy, which many experts believe has already overtaken that of the United States to become the world’s biggest, is forecast to grow by 5 per cent this year and 4.2 per cent in 2024.

The IMF upgraded its growth forecast for the US to 2.1 per cent for this year and 1.5 per cent for 2024.