Is the IMF right to be this pessimistic about the UK economy?

The International Monetary fund has published its biannual World Economic Outlook report – and it’s more bad news for the UK. While the IMF’s predictions for 2023 fall broadly in line with other forecasts – which show Germany having the most economic trouble this year – the IMF predicts that the UK will be an outlier come 2024. It expects the UK to grow by 0.6 per cent next year: the weakest growth among G7 nations and a downgrade of 0.4 per cent from its previous predictions.

But there are reasons to be optimistic. Revisions to UK GDP of late has been more positive. Just last month the Office for National Statistics revealed that the UK in fact had a better pandemic bounce-back than France or Germany. GDP forecasts are subject to lots of uncertainty and have plenty of moving parts. Next year’s predictions from the IMF would only need to be off by a sliver to move the UK up the ranks, with Italy predicted 0.7