WASHINGTON”•The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said protectionist political trends risked “turning back the clock” on free trade, warning of a low-growth future for the global economy.
In its new World Economic Outlook report, the global crisis lender also sounded an alarm over what it called a “dangerous” credit binge in China.
With Britain voting this year to secede from the European Union and US presidential candidates disfavoring open borders, the IMF said populist politics imperiled trade liberalization and economic growth.
The Fund notably cut its outlook for the United States, the world’s largest economy, but upgraded those for Japan and the eurozone.
It also downgraded forecasts both for growth in global trade volume and for advanced economies’ output, saying that prospects for richer countries had darkened this year, in part due to the protectionist talk.
“It is vitally important to defend the prospects for increasing trade integration,” said IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld.
“Turning back the clock on trade can only deepen and prolong the world economy’s current doldrums.”
Global GDP is expected to grow this year by 3.1 percent before rising to 3.4 percent next year, estimates that are unchanged from July.
“Taken as a whole, the world economy has moved sideways,” Obstfeld said in remarks accompanying the new forecast.
He said that “sub-par growth” was stirring negative economic and political forces around the world.
The IMF downgraded its outlook for advanced economies this year by 0.2 percentage points to 1.6 percent but raised it slightly for emerging and developing economies to 4.2 percent. Next year’s forecasts were unchanged.
“Over the medium term, while we expect that advanced economies will continue along a disappointingly low growth path, emerging market and developing economies should accelerate,” said Obstfeld.
The IMF said global growth still faces notable uncertainties, such as further economic shocks in China, a continued fall in commodity prices and the sudden imposition of new trade barriers.
“Geopolitical tensions could flare up, adding to the humanitarian crises already afoot in the Middle East and Africa,” the report said.
Following a lackluster second quarter, the United States suffered the report’s sharpest downward revision of 0.6 percentage points, with growth now foreseen at 1.6 percent this year”•slower than the eurozone”•and 1.8 percent in 2017.
Japan was a surprise bright spot, however, with forecasts revised upward. The Japanese economy is now due to grow by 0.5 and 0.6 percent this year and next.
