The International Monetary Fund today lowered its forecast for global economic growth for 2018 and 2019, saying that trade policy tensions and import tariffs have a negative impact on trade while emerging markets face tougher financial conditions and capital outflows.
The IMF expects the world economy to grow by 3.7 percent in 2018 and 2019, compared with its forecast in July of 3.9 percent. The reduction reflects several factors, including US-China tariffs, the weak performance of euro-zone countries, Japan and Britain, and rising interest rates that are putting pressure on some emerging markets with outflows.
In the US-China trade war, the International Monetary Fund reduced the growth forecast for the U.S. economy in 2019 to 2.5% from 2.7% previously, while reducing the growth forecast for the Chinese economy in 2019 to 6.2% from 6.4%. The growth forecast for 2018 was kept unchanged at 2.9% for the U.S. and 6.6% for China. Also, forecasts for growth in the Eurozone for 2018 were reduced to 2% from 2.2%.
