The world economy, like France, should suffer a brake this fall and next winter under the effect of the energy shock, but then recover, estimated Wednesday the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE).
As a result, global growth would fall to 2% in 2023 after 2.7% this year, estimates the OFCE, whose forecasts are more pessimistic than those of the IMF, which expects 3.2% in 2022 and 2.7% next year.
The OFCE notably anticipates growth of only 1.2% in China in 2022, against 3.2% forecast by the IMF.
“
To assume that there is 3% growth in China as the IMF says, there would have to have been a big rebound in the third quarter, but there have been many indicators that tell us that there there has been little growth
" in the world's second largest economy this summer, with the continuation of local confinements and the cold snap on the real estate sector, economist Catherine Mathieu, a specialist in China, told a press conference. at the OFCE.
The French economic institute also foresees growth limited to 0.7% in 2023 in the United States, against 1% for the IMF.
The expected recession in Germany will also be a little more pronounced (-0.5%) according to the OFCE, than for the IMF (-0.3%).
“
The United States has a level of activity which has held up better overall than [that of] European countries
” and which is 2.6% higher than it was before the Covid-19 crisis“, explained Christophe Blot, Deputy Director of the Analysis and Forecasts Department of the OFCE.
France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have roughly returned to their pre-Covid level of activity in 2022, apart from Spain which remains 2.5% below.
At the global level, the economic cold snap would be "short-lived since activity would accelerate again at the end of 2023", according to the note from the observatory, which bases its forecasts on a scenario without supply disruption. in gas, with an average price of 200 euros per MWh, and 100 dollars for a barrel of oil.
Rising unemployment
For France, the OFCE's growth forecast for 2023 is marginally lower than that of the IMF, at 0.6% against 0.7%.
The French government is counting on 1%.
The French economy continues to grow, albeit slightly, thanks to the budgetary measures taken to cushion the energy crisis, predicts the OFCE.
Despite this aid, purchasing power per consumption unit should contract by 1.4% over the two years 2022 and 2023, "which would bring it back to a level close to 2019", according to calculations by the OFCE.
The observatory's scenario is based on a household savings rate which will climb from 15.5% currently to 17.4% at the end of 2022 "due to the inertia of consumption and the uncertainty which will remain high in end of the year“, before gradually returning to its pre-crisis level in 2023. Unemployment should rise in parallel with the rise in business bankruptcies linked to the extinction of the aid put in place during the health crisis, a a trend which should also be at work in other Western economies.
In France, after reaching a low point of 7.2% of the active population in Q3 2022, the unemployment rate should rise to 8% at the end of 2023.
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“
This scenario assumes a relative stability of the stock of apprentices over the next few quarters, around 900,000
,” specifies the OFCE.
The slowdown in activity should weigh on the public deficit, which after having been reduced to 4.9% of GDP this year, should increase to 5.2% next year as a result of "
the expected lower dynamism of tax revenues
"
and
"
from the increase in interest charges
".
The government, for its part, intends to maintain the public deficit at 5% next year.
