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Bloomberg
The International Monetary Fund further reduced its global growth outlook, already the lowest since the financial crisis, and suggested that policy “missteps†on trade and Brexit could derail a projected rebound.
The world economy will expand 3.2 percent this year and 3.5 percent next year, both down 0.1 percentage point from April projections, the fund said in its latest quarterly World Economic Outlook in Washington. A rate of 3.3 percent or lower would be the weakest since 2009. The IMF also slashed expectations for growth in the global volume of trade in goods and services, reducing its estimate by 0.9 point to 2.5 percent in 2019.
“The projected growth pickup in 2020 is precarious, presuming stabilisation in currently stressed emerging market and developing economies and progress towards resolving trade policy differences,†the IMF said.
The warnings about the brittle state of the world economy follow weaker readings on China’s growth and come just before US GDP data due this week, which are forecast to show growth cooled in the second quarter.
Central banks have been monitoring trade tensions and slowing growth globally. The Federal Reserve is poised to cut interest rates at the end of this month for the first time in more than a decade.