UK economy to shrink more than Russia, predicts IMF

Britain’s economy will have the worst performance of all G7 economies even sinking below Russia.

In its latest update, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its UK forecast once again, predicting a contraction of 0.6 per cent against the 0.3 per cent growth pencilled in last October.

The grim outlook for the year ahead puts the UK far behind counterparts in the G7 and the only country – across advanced and emerging economies – expected to suffer a year of declining GDP.

The IMF forecast leaves the UK economy languishing behind Germany and even sanctions-hit Russia, with both countries expected to see modest growth this year.

Since Russia began its “special military operation” in Ukraine it has been the subject of tranches of sanctions from the West. In the UK alone, sanctions against Russia topped £18bn for the first time as financial restrictions on Kremlin banks and oligarchs have been tightened.

The expectation of recession for the UK comes against a backdrop of public sector strikes over pay and inflation still standing at more than 10 per cent as the cost of living crisis hits hard.

Among the other G7 nations, the IMF’s 2023 GDP predictions show growth of 1.4 per cent in the US, 0.1 per cent in Germany, 0.7 per cent in France, 0.6 per cent in Italy, 1.8 per cent in Japan and 1.5 per cent in Canada.

The IMF said Britain’s predicted GDP fall reflects “tighter fiscal and monetary policies and financial conditions and still-high energy retail prices weighing on household budgets”.

It follows efforts by chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week to talk up UK growth prospects in his first major speech in the post, declaring that “declinism about Britain was wrong in the past and it is wrong today”.

Responding to the IMF figures, Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves MP, said there were too many signs that Britain was “lagging behind our peers”.

Ms Reeves said: “The government should be doing all it can to make our economy stronger and to get it growing. It is the only way that we can move beyond lurching from crisis to crisis as we have been for far too long.”

However, Tory minister Richard Holden poured scorn on IMF analysis – saying the UK could “beat” the international body’s forecast. Asked if Britain could prove the IMF wrong, he told Sky News: “I think so.”

“It’s a forecast – it’s not what has happened,” Mr Holden told Times Radio. “They’ve been wrong in the past couple of years. I think Britain can beat those predictions. The proof will be in the pudding.”

The IMF did nudge up its outlook for UK growth in 2024 to 0.9 per cent, up from the 0.6 per cent expansion previously forecast.

The body also offered a chink of light in the otherwise gloomy economic update, predicting that the global slowdown will be shallower than first feared.

It upgraded its global growth forecast, to 2.9 per cent in 2023 from the 2.7 per cent predicted in October as it said the reopening of China after strict Covid restrictions has “paved the way for a faster-than-expected recovery”.

The IMF also said it believes global inflation has passed its peak and will fall from 8.8 per cent last year to 6.6 per cent in 2023 and 4.3 per cent in 2024 as interest rate hikes by central banks begin to cool demand and slow price rises.

But it warned that, in the UK and Europe, surging prices and the impact of action taken to rein in inflation, will continue to weigh on the economy.

It said: “Consumer confidence and business sentiment have worsened. With inflation at about 10 per cent or above in several euro area countries and the United Kingdom, household budgets remain stretched.

“The accelerated pace of rate increases by the Bank of England and the European Central Bank is tightening financial conditions and cooling demand in the housing sector and beyond.”

Chief economist for the IMF, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, explained there were three primary factors motivating the UK’s economic outlook.

He said: “First, there is exposure to natural gas… we’ve had a very sharp increase in energy prices in the UK. There is a larger share of energy that is coming from natural gas, with a higher pass-through to final consumers.

“The UK’s employment levels have also not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. This is a situation where you have a very, very tight labour market but you have an economy that has not re-absorbed into employment as many people as it had before. That means there is less output, less production.

“The third is that there is a very sharp monetary tightening because inflation has been very elevated, that’s a side effect of this high pass-through of energy prices.

“Inflation was 9.1 per cent last year, and it’s expected to actually remain quite high in this coming year at 8.2 per cent (so) the Bank of England has started tightening.

“The UK has a fairly high share of adjustable rate mortgages. So when the Bank of England starts increasing rates, it feeds into the mortgage rates that mortgage holders are paying, and that is also weighing down economic activity.”

Mr Hunt said: “The governor of the Bank of England recently said that any UK recession this year is likely to be shallower than previously predicted, however these figures confirm we are not immune to the pressures hitting nearly all advanced economies.

“Short-term challenges should not obscure our long-term prospects – the UK outperformed many forecasts last year, and if we stick to our plan to halve inflation, the UK is still predicted to grow faster than Germany and Japan over the coming years.”