‘Inflation will continue until next year,’ IMF forecasts

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), projected that the present inflation led by soaring energy and food prices will continue until next year and concerns over consequent global economic recession will accelerate as well.

During the CNBC interview on Friday (local time), Kristalina Georgieva forecasted that the global interest rate hikes will continue until 2023 and the heated inflation will start to cool off. “Even now, the prices are creeping up. We need to dampen it down,” she stated. “Central banks from each country must take decisive steps to suppress inflation until it becomes clear that inflation rate is moving within a specific range.”

Larry Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, warned during an interview with Financial Times (FT) on Saturday, “The food price hike could move beyond raising inflation rate and even lead to a geopolitical conflict,” expressing his concerns over food price increase as much as the international oil price rise.

This refers to the destruction of major farmlands with the Russian invasion of the global granary Ukraine and the surge in fertilizer price is dealing a blow to the global harvest. The World Bank forecasted that the global food price will witness a 20 percent rise and especially the developing countries are going to be hit hard.


Eun-Taek Lee nabi@donga.com