UK to be only major economy to shrink in 2023, says IMF

The UK will be the only major advanced economy to shrink this year, and will even be outperformed by sanctions-affected Russia, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has said.

The IMF predicts that the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, after downgrading its previous prediction of limited expansion, which was based on “relatively stronger growth” in 2022,

“It is true that we are expecting a fairly sharp slowdown in this year. We’re projecting a growth that is -0.6 percent for the year. And that’s a downward revision of 0.9 percentage point,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist and director of the IMF research department, explained.

In a separate development, UK general government gross debt reached £2,445.2 billion in the third quarter (July to September) of 2022, equivalent to 100.2% of gross domestic product, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).