IMF Global Economic Outlook & Forecast

The following is a global forecast provided by the IMF this week. We provided an abridged statement from the IMF which is then followed by our Steel Market Update data analysis and comments about the future of global and domestic steel demand through 2020. This is a piece normally reserved for our Premium members but we wanted to share it with all of our readers as we try to provide more information about our upstream Premium products.

Overall, global growth is forecast at 3.5 percent in 2015 and 3.8 percent in 2016, broadly the same as last year. But this aggregate number masks the diverse developments. A number of complex forces are shaping the prospects around the world,” says Olivier Blanchard, IMF Economic Counselor and Director of Research. “Legacies of both the financial and the euro area crises—weak banks and high levels of public, corporate, and household debt—are still weighing on spending and growth in some countries. Low growth in turn makes deleveraging a slow process.” Blanchard also notes that the combination of population aging, lower investment, and sluggish advances in productivity will lead to significantly lower potential growth both in advanced and emerging market economies. “More subdued growth prospects lead, in turn, to lower spending and lower growth today,” he says.