The International Monetary Fund on July 25 raised its 2007 and 2008 forecasts for world economic growth to 5.2. "The major upward revisions have been for emerging market and developing countries, with growth projections substantially marked up for China, India and Russia."
IMF predicted India's growth rate to be 9% while Russia's would be 7%.
"Although growth in the U.S. slowed in the first quarter, recent indicators suggest that the economy regained momentum in the second quarter," the Washington-based financial institution said, predicting a "return to potential by mid-2008." The U.S. growth forecast for 2008 was left unchanged at a 2.8% .Charles Collins, the IMF deputy director of research, said that the IMF was "expecting quite a sharp bounce back" in the U.S. economy in the April-June period.
For Japan, the world's second-biggest economy, the IMF raised its growth forecast to 2.6% in 2007, up 0.3 percentage points, and to 2% in 2008, up 0.1 point.
In Europe, the 27-nation eurozone was seen expanding at a faster clip of 2.6% this year and 2.5% in 2008, up 0.3 points and 0.2 points, respectively. The upward revision was driven by Germany, Europe's largest economy, seen as growing 2.6% in 2007 and 2.4% in 2008.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2007
