IMF report predicts "black" future for Argentina

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast for Argentina a decline of 3.1% of GDP, an inflation of 57.3% and an unemployment rate of 10.6% for the whole of 2019 .

According to the update of its report "World Economic Outlook" (WEO), the agency estimated the current account imbalance at 1.2%.

For next year, the IMF forecasts better conditions for Argentina, with a sharp deceleration of inflation (39.2%) and a lower decline in GDP (1.3%).

In the global context, the report expects growth of 3%, the lowest level since 2008-09 and at the same time represents a 0.3 percentage point reduction compared to the projection in the report. from April of 2019.

For the IMF, "the drastic deterioration of macroeconomic conditions has occurred between 2017 and 2019 in a small number of economies under severe stress (notably Argentina, Iran, the Caribbean). Turkey and Venezuela) accounts for about half of the slowdown in global growth, from 3.8 percent in 2017 to 3.0 percent in 2019 ".

According to the entity, "these same economies – with Brazil, Mexico and Russia, which are forecast to grow by about 1% or less in 2019 – generate more than 70% of the rebound expected growth by 2020 ".

For what is expected for next year (2020), global growth of 3.4% (which is also a downward revision of 0.2 percentage point compared to April), and this improvement is "more than anything, thanks to the expected improvement in the economic performance of several emerging markets in Latin America, the Middle East and emerging and developing economies of Europe, which are subject to macroeconomic tensions. "

However, given the uncertainty surrounding the outlook for many of these countries, the expected slowdown in China and the United States, and the significant downside risks, the pace of global activity may well be more moderate, he warned. text presented today at a press conference on the occasion of the joint annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank to be held this week.

The Fund expects that "in Argentina the economy will contract further in 2019 due to the loss of self-confidence and tightening of external financing conditions".

In this regard, he said that "the August primary elections of August resulted in a sharp increase in the yield of government bonds as part of a massive sell-off of national assets. ".

And for the next period, the IMF "predicts that the Argentine economy will contract again in 2020, but not as much as this year."