– the IMF reduced its global growth projection for 2009 to 3.0 per cent, lower, to be sure, than the earlier forecast, but still a fairly robust rate. In January of this year, the IMF again reduced its growth forecast for 2009, this time to 0.5 per cent. Several weeks ago, the IMF released a new forecast.
The IMF now projects that global growth will turn negative – on the order of 1.3 per cent – this year. What happened to produce such a dramatic turnaround?