Corona outbreak could derail Global economy-IMF Chief

The global economy is recovering from the depths of the coronavirus crisis, but there are signs of slowing momentum in countries with resurging infection rates, the International Monetary Fund said in a new report for G20 major economies. The report, released ahead of this week’s virtual meetings of finance officials and leaders from the Group of 20 countries, underscored the uneven nature of the global recovery and warned the crisis would likely leave deep, unequal scars.

In a separate blog post, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva hailed what she called significant progress in the development of vaccines to vanquish a virus that has claimed more than a million lives around the globe and resulted in tens of millions of job losses. But she cautioned that the economic path ahead remains “difficult and prone to setbacks.” Georgieva said data received since that forecast confirmed a continuing recovery, with the United States and other advanced economies reporting stronger-than-expected economic activity in the third quarter.But she said the most recent data for contact-intensive service industries pointed to a slowing momentum in economies where the pandemic was resurging.