Low oil prices will not provide a sufficient updraught to dispel the clouds hanging over the global economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
In a sign of its increasing gloom about the medium term economic outlook, the IMF cut its global economic growth forecasts by 0.3 percentage points for both 2015 and 2016, despite believing cheaper oil represents a “shot in the arm”.
Although the fund still believes the world economy is likely to grow 3.5 per cent this year, close to the average rate over the past 30 years, it had hoped for a period of much faster growth to recoup some of the output lost in the financial and economic crisis of 2008-09.