The International Monetary Fund warns that this year is going to be a year of great challenges. A protracted era of low interest rates poses a real threat to further economic growth, as well as unexpected changes in the ECB monetary policy. Experts at the IMF foresee poor prospects for the global economy as it is likely to face a long period of lackluster growth or a long-term contraction at worst. In general, the global GDP is expected to rise at a moderate pace in 2016 exceeding the previous year growth rate. Economists foretell that in 2016 the global GDP growth rate will hit the level of 3.4% on an annual basis compared to 3.1% in 2015. The long-term IMF’s outlook suggests that the world’s GDP growth rate will improve to 3.6% in 2017.
Particular attention was paid to the economic growth rate in Russia. The IMF forecast suggests that the country will face economic contraction in 2016 posting the negative GDP growth around the turn of the year. The outlook was downgraded for all developing economy countries, including Brazil, Russia, and China. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, noted that ongoing problems in the developing markets cause the major hazard to the global economy growth rate. These countries’ economies were hardly affected by the recent slump in commodity prices, oil prices in particular. Analysts expect the current situation to deteriorate if no positive changes take place in the global crude market. However, the IMF was more positive about prospects for the economic growth in the US, United Kingdom, and eurozone.
