IMF: Global economy on track for broad-based recovery

The global economy is on track for a broad-based recovery and the International Monetary Fund is unlikely to change its outlook when it issues is next report.
“We see broad-based recovery. The importance is that it is really broad-based in a way that it hasn’t been in a decade,” Maury Obstfeld, the chief economist for the IMF, said in an interview with CNBC.com.
While Obstfeld did not disclose the Fund’s projection would be, he said the “the organization ‘certainly’ is not going to lower the number from its last projection.”
The IMF, in its July World Economic Outlook, said that global output would grow by 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018.
High-frequency indicators for the second quarter provided signs of continued strengthening of global activity particularly growth in global trade and industrial production, the fund said.
Despite the positive outlook, Obstfeld also cautioned about risks to global growth particularly longer-term ones.
“One risk is just continuing tepid growth. What we’re seeing now is a cyclical upswing, but potential growth remains slow,” Obstfeld said. “That brings with it political tensions which we’ve seen spilling over into protectionist rhetoric, for example.”

Source: Arab News