IMF sees long-term inflation expectations stable despite the war

“Relegantly to inflation expectations, we find that they have increased this year, but that, in the long term, they remain stable,” said IMF spokesman Julie Kozack at a press conference today.

Julie Kozack recalled that, in the latest update of the report on the global economic outlook, released in July, the body revised the forecast for global inflation in 2026 to 4.7% in three tenths.

The IMF remained virtually unchanged the projection for underlying inflation, which excludes food and fuel prices, and forecasted for 2027 price developments at a global level closer to normal.

However, in these forecasts, the IMF estimated that by the end of the summer the intensity of the war in Iran would have decreased substantially or that Washington and Tehran could even have reached a peace agreement.

Julie Kozack's statements emerge at a time marked by a further escalation of military clashes around the Strait of Ormuz, with the price of the barrel of oil already oscillating around the symbolic mark of the $100.

The IMF spokesman also recalled that the current oil traffic through the Strait of Ormuz represents only one tenth of the recorded before the war and reiterated the recent warning issued by the body's director-general, Kristalina Georgieva.

The director-general of the IMF warned that not only has the energy crisis not yet ended, but it may worsen in the coming months, in a scenario marked by the reduction of strategic oil reserves, the arrival of winter in the northern hemisphere and the increase in energy demand in some countries due to the expansion of artificial intelligence (IA).