IMF Lowers Forecast of Euro Zone Economic GrowthThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its forecast of economic growth in the Euro-zone this year from 3.4 percent, predicted last Autumn, to 2.4 percent.The revision, contained in the Spring report of IMF, which will be published Thursday at the IMF and the World Bank conference in Washington, was revealed on Saturday by German newspaper Boersen-Zeitung (Stock Exchange). The newspaper reported that IMF downgraded the growth rate of the United States from 3.2 percent to 1.5 percent and that of Japan will remain at 0.6 percent. For the world as a whole, the economy will grow at 3.2 percent this year, the paper said citing IMF figures. According to "Focus" weekly, IMF also revised its prediction of Germany's growth for this year from 3.3 percent to 1.9 percent. This means that fund organization is even more pessimistic than Germany's leading economic institutes, which recently predicted a growth rate of 2.1 percent. But IMF foresees a resurgence of 2.6 percent next year, higher than the 2.2 percent forecast by Germany's own economists, and will "for the first time in years, catch up with that of France," the magazine said. |
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