IMF Lowers Global Growth Forecast

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its forecast for global economic growth this year, from 3.7% to 3.4%.

The reduction reflects a weak start to the year in the United States and a number of downgrades to the outlook for several other individual economies.

However there were uplifts for some countries, the largest being the UK.

The global forecast for 2015 is unchanged, with growth predicted to be 4%.

Several countries do receive an upgrade and the largest for 2014 is for the UK – from a 2.8% to a 3.2% expansion of the economy.

It is the latest in a string of upgrades from the IMF and others.

There is a smaller uplift to the IMF forecast for the UK for next year.

Introducing the new forecasts, the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard said: “The recovery continues, but it remains a weak recovery, indeed a bit weaker than we forecast in April.”

Nonetheless he said that the headline – the revision for this year – “makes things look worse than they really are”.

That is because, he said, “it largely reflects something that has already happened”.

via BBC

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