IMF lifts global growth forecast
Nairobi (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund will revise upward its global growth forecast in about three weeks, Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Tuesday in Nairobi.
"We will be revising upwards the global forecast of the economic growth," she told a press conference in the Kenyan capital, adding that it would be premature to say any more.
Lagarde, who was wrapping up a two-day visit to Kenya, gave no reason for the revision.
When it issued its latest World Economic Outlook report in October, the IMF lowered its forecasts, saying that global growth "remains in low gear".
It said it expected the global economy to grow 2.9 percent year-on-year in 2013 and 3.6 percent in 2014. That represented a downward revision of 0.3 and 0.2 percentage points, respectively, from its July estimates.
Emerging-market economies, although still accounting for most global growth, were losing more momentum than previously thought, the IMF said in November, although advanced economies, in particular the United States, were showing signs of picking up.
The fact that the US Federal Reserve has started to change the easy-money policy it had been pursuing has had the effect of slowing capital inflows to emerging-market economies as long-term yields in the United States and many other economies have risen, Lagarde said Tuesday.
The IMF chief dined with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday evening in the coastal city of Mombasa.
Her visit came a month after the final disbursement of a three-year, $750 million support loan for Kenya that had backed major restructuring of economic policies and strengthening of the government's financial position.
