The head of the International Monetary Fund says global growth will turn sharply negative in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech on Thursday that the fund anticipates the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression that began in 1929.

She said, "Just three months ago, we expected positive per capita income growth in over 160 of our member countries in 2020."

She added, "Today, that number has been turned on its head: we now project that over 170 countries will experience negative per capita income growth this year."

Georgieva warned that the crisis will hurt everyone as it has no boundaries.

She said the IMF projects a partial recovery in 2021 if the coronavirus pandemic fades in the second half of this year.

But she cautioned that there is "tremendous uncertainty" around this projection.

She also touched on the international investment fleeing from what she called vulnerable countries.

She said that in the last two months, portfolio outflows from emerging markets were about 100 billion dollars -- more than three times larger than for the same period of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Source: International News Agencies