IMF to revisit growth forecast for India due to surge in Covid-19 cases

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday the recent jump in COVID-19 cases in India posed downside risks to the Fund’s April forecast for 12.5{f08ff3a0ad7db12f5b424ba38f473ff67b97b420df338baa81683bbacd458fca} growth in India’s economic output in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.

The IMF will revisit that forecast when it issued a fresh World Economic Outlook in July, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters at a regular briefing, but gave no further details.

He said the developments in India, the world’s second most populous nation, would have spillover effects for the region and the global economy, depending on how long the crisis lasted, but it was too soon to give specifics.

“We’re all watching what is happening in India with concern,” Rice said. “There will be spillovers … contingent on how deep and how long the severity of this crisis continues.”

India, with a population of 1.3 billion people, reported a record 412,262 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday and a record 3,980 deaths, as a second wave of infections swamped its healthcare system.

COVID-19 infections in India have surged past 21 million, with a death toll of 230,168, health ministry data showed.

Medical experts say India’s actual figures could be five to 10 times the official tallies.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bernadette Baum)

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