The global economy has years ahead of it anemic growth, the managing director of the IMF warned on Thursday, with the medium-term outlook being the worst of the last 30 years. Kristalina Georgieva noted that global growth will be limited to an average annual rate of around 3% over the next five years.

This is the weakest medium-term forecast for growth since 1990, and below the average of 3.8% for the four five-year periods of the last 20 years.

Ms Georgieva noted that “geopolitical tensions and economic fragmentation” were key barriers to growth, with trade protectionism expected to limit the pace of economic expansion.

Speaking in Washington ahead of the spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF next week, the IMF chief warned that the lower outlook would make “even more difficult to reduce poverty, healing the economic wounds of the pandemic crisis and providing new and better opportunities for all”.

About 90% of advanced economies will see growth slow this year as tighter monetary policy weighs on demand and slows economic activity in the US and euro zone, the IMF said.