The International Monetary Fund is set to lower its forecast for global economic growth for this year to 2.7 per cent from 3.2 per cent, IMF managing director Mr Horst Koehler said today.
In its previous world economic outlook published in May, the IMF had been predicting global growth of 3.2 per cent for 2001 and 3.9 per cent for 2002.
Mr Koehler said he assumed the world economy would begin to recover towards the end of this year. But it was worrying the economies of all big industrialised countries were slowing.
Mr Koehler said the fund was "concerned about developments in Japan". As for Europe, the European Central Bank had "further room for rate cuts," Mr Koehler said.
The ECB recently trimmed a quarter of a percentage point off its key interest rates, lowering its key "refi" refinancing rate to 4.25 per cent.
AFP