BBC News.
The global economic
recovery is weakening as government policies have failed to restore
confidence, the International Monetary Fund has said.
It added that the risk of further deterioration in the economic outlook was "considerable" and had increased.
The IMF downgraded its estimate for global growth in 2013 to 3.6% from the 3.9% it forecast in July.
One of the biggest downgrades was to the UK economy, which the IMF expects to shrink by 0.4% this year.
This compares with its forecast of 0.2% growth in July. Next
year, the UK economy should grow by 1.1%, the IMF said, down from its
previous forecast of 1.4%.
In response to the downgrade, the UK Treasury highlighted the
fact that the IMF had "repeated its advice that the first line of
defence against [slowing growth] should be to allow the automatic
stabilisers to operate, monetary policy easing and measures to ease the
flow of credit - all of which the UK is doing".
The fund's forecast for global growth this year has been lowered to 3.3% from 3.5%.
