IMF to raise its forecasts
THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund has boosted hopes for an early exit from recession by saying it is to raise its global growth forecasts in the next few days.
IMF deputy director Murilo Portugal said yesterday the Fund is to raise its forecast for 2010 global growth to around three per cent, compared to the current 2.5 per cent.
“The recovery is stronger than initially forecast,” he said.
Head of the Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned world leaders against removing fiscal stimulus measures too quickly, at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh over the weekend.
But European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet dampened the recovery hopes yesterday, saying his organisation will not support money markets forever.
“We have introduced exceptional measures under exceptional circumstances. We will have to phase them out once the rationale for these measures fades away,” Trichet told a European Parliament committee hearing.
Meanwhile, World Bank president Robert Zoellick warned that the US needed to prepare for the dollar to be replaced as the world’s reserve currency as America loses its dominance following the financial crisis.