The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor report, published today, said Britain should relax its fiscal consolidation strategy – which aims to cancel the country’s structural deficit by 2017 – if the economy remained weak.
The FT said the report could ‘pile pressure’ on George Osborne to switch to plan B to boost the UK’s ailing economy, which has contracted over each of the past three quarters.
The BBC reported the IMF also said governments around the globe have failed to restore confidence and the global economic recovery was weakening.
The IMF warned the risk of further deterioration in the economic outlook was considerable, and was increasing.
The report said the IMF had downgraded its estimate for global growth in 2013 to 3.6% from the 3.9% it forecast in July.
