The coronavirus pandemic will flip international financial development “sharply unfavorable” this yr, the pinnacle of the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) has warned. Kristalina Georgieva mentioned the world confronted the worst financial disaster for the reason that Nice Melancholy of the Thirties. BBC studies:

She forecast that 2021 would solely see a partial restoration. Ms Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, made her bleak evaluation in remarks forward of subsequent week’s IMF and World Financial institution Spring Conferences. Rising markets and creating international locations could be the toughest hit, she mentioned, requiring a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in overseas support. “Simply three months in the past, we anticipated optimistic per capita revenue development in over 160 of our member international locations in 2020,” she mentioned. “As we speak, that quantity has been turned on its head: we now undertaking that over 170 international locations will expertise unfavorable per capita revenue development this yr.” She added: “Actually, we anticipate the worst financial fallout for the reason that Nice Melancholy.”

Ms Georgieva mentioned that if the pandemic eased within the second half of 2020, the IMF anticipated to see a partial restoration subsequent yr. However she cautioned that the scenario might additionally worsen. “I stress there’s large uncertainty concerning the outlook. It might worsen relying on many variable elements, together with the period of the pandemic,” she mentioned.

Her feedback got here because the US reported that the variety of People in search of unemployment advantages had surged for the third week by 6.6 million, bringing the entire over that interval to greater than 16 million People.