IMF - India to slowdown

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday lowered India's
economic growth forecast for next year to 6.3 percent - 0.6 percent less than what it had projected last month - as the financial crisis envelops the world.

Growth in world economic output for next year is also likely to suffer, with the multilateral funding agency projecting it to fall by 0.8 percent at 2.2 percent.

The forecast was part of the World Economic Outlook Update the Fund released today.

Painting a scary picture of world trade, the IMF forecast suggests that the global growth in volume of trade in goods and services would slide from 7.2 percent to 4.6 percent in 2008 and dip to 2.1 percent next year.

The world economic growth is likely to slowdown from 5 percent in 2002 to 3.37 percent in 2008, while India's economic growth for this year is expected to dip by just 0.1 percent to 7.8 percent than what was forecast last month.

As per the IMF projections, India is likely to record an economic growth of 6.6 percent during October-December as against 8.9 percent in the corresponding period in 2007.

"The downward revisions to 2009 real GDP growth projections are somewhat larger in emerging economies, averaging one percent," the IMF said.

In line with the market development, IMF has revised petroleum price projection from 100 dollar a barrel to 68 dollar a barrel for 2009.

According to IMF projections, the UK will be the worst hit on account of the global crisis and may witness contraction of its economy by 1.3 percent in 2009.

In addition, the advanced countries which will witness negative growth in 2009 include the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.