Trinidad &Tobago’s economy is expected to grow by 5.4 per cent next year before suffering a projected contraction of 1 per cent this year.

This is the latest assessment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its just released 2021 World Economic Outlook. This latest projection is a drop from the earlier one of economic growth of 2.1% that was predicted back in July.

According to the IMF, the twin island Caribbean republic is expected to experience economic growth of 5.4% in 2022 with growth of 1.6% projected for 2026. Of all the countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, Guyana is expected to register the highest level of economic growth of 20.4% in 2021.

Overall the LAC region is expected to record economic growth of 6.3% in 2021. The IMF notes that if COVID-19 were to have a prolonged impact into the medium term, it could reduce global Gross Domestic Product by a cumulative US$5.3 trillion over the next five years.

Global growth projection for 2022 remains unchanged

The latest forecast has seen the IMF revising its July assessment for global growth projection for 2021. This has been revised down marginally to 5.9 percent and is unchanged for 2022 at 4.9 per cent.”

Gita Gopinath, the Economic Counsellor and Director of Research explains that, “this modest headline revision, however, masks large downgrades for some countries. “

She adds that, ”the outlook for the low-income developing country group has darkened considerably due to worsening pandemic dynamics. The downgrade also reflects more difficult near-term prospects for the advanced economy group, in part due to supply disruptions.

”Partially offsetting these changes, projections for some commodity exporters have been upgraded on the back of rising commodity prices. Gopinath posits that “pandemic-related disruptions to contact-intensive sectors have caused the labour market recovery to significantly lag the output recovery in most countries.”