PSD President Luís Montenegro believed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts released today are good news, as the faster inflation decreases, the greater the country’s ability to restore economic normalcy.
When asked if the latest IMF forecasts, which estimate global inflation to fall from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.8% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024, are good news, Luís Montenegro replied in the affirmative, although he has not yet had “access to this information” as he is walking the streets as part of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative.
“Certainly. We have been waiting for a long time for inflation to decrease and come into a normal range. This is good for the economy and it is also good for citizens’ lives”he said, speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to an artificial intelligence company, in the municipality of Santa Cruz, Madeira.
“The faster this objective is achieved, the more capacity we will have to restore the normality of economic activity, grow more and, grow more, pay better wages and create more conditions for people to maintain and fit into a socio-economic life that is the life we want to promote in Portugal,” he stressed.
The PSD chairman added that he does not want to “continue to watch every year the exodus of young Portuguese looking for opportunities in other regions”.
“We want what I see happening here, right in this unit, where a young Portuguese entrepreneur returned to Madeira and works here for the whole world, in the field of artificial intelligence,” he underlined.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is slightly more bullish on global economic growth this year, forecasting a rate of 3%, the same as it also estimates for 2024, according to updated economic projections released today.
In the report titled “Near-Term Resilience” and “Consistent Challenges,” the Bretton Woods Institution is revising its forecast for this year by 0.2 percentage point (pp) compared to April projections, with no change for 2024.
Despite the slight improvement, he warns that the forecast for 2023–24 remains “well below the historical annual average (2000–19) of 3.8%.”
According to the IMF, advanced economies will continue to influence the growth slowdown from 2022 to 2023, with weaker industrial production and idiosyncratic factors offset by stronger services activity.
In emerging markets and emerging economies, growth prospects for 2023 and 2024 are broadly stable, albeit with changes across regions.
The IMF explains that the rise in central bank reference rates to fight inflation continues to weigh on economic activity and expects global inflation to decline from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.8% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024.
Underlying (‘core’) inflation is expected to decline more gradually and inflation projections in 2024 have been revised upwards.
Source: DN
