The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is warning that as the global economy slows down, this year will be even tougher than 2022 for the US, EU, and Chinese economies.

Increasing interest rates, soaring inflation, the Ukraine conflict, and persistent and repeated Covid-19 outbreaks in China will all continue to buffet the global economy in 2023, according to Kristalina Georgieva, in an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

She said, “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even countries that are not in recession, it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.”

Late last year, the IMF slashed its forecast for global economic growth in 2023, pointing to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, as well as increasingly hawkish central bank policies being implemented across the globe in an effort to rein in rapidly accelerating inflation and energy costs. Since then, Beijing has abandoned its aggressive “zero-Covid” policies and begun to forcibly reopen its economy, despite the rapid spread of the virus across the nation.

Georgieva predicted that China would have a difficult beginning to 2023, and that the world’s second-biggest economy would likely see lackluster growth at or below the overall global level for the first time in four decades.

The IMF chief went on to warn, “For the next couple of months, it would be tough for China, and the impact on Chinese growth would be negative, the impact on the region will be negative, the impact on global growth will be negative.”

Georgieva noted that among nations, the US would prove the “most resilient,” adding that it is possible it might avoid a recession entirely due to how strong its labor market remains.

She added, “This is… a mixed blessing because if the labor market is very strong, the Fed [the Federal Reserve] may have to keep interest rates tighter for longer to bring inflation down.”