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Sustainable Economy > Published by Will Straw, April 12th 2011 at 1:15 pm

IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth

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Behind today’s headlines on the IMF downgrading Britain’s expected growth levels, lie reams of data and analysis about the state of the world economy. Perhaps most depressing of all is the map below putting Britain’s predicament in a global context.

Global-average-projected-real-GDP-growth-2011–12
With one or two exceptions, growth below 2 per cent is isolated to Europe, Britain’s major trading partner. This does not bode well given that Britain’s recovery is predicated on export-led growth. Alongside Britain, slow or negative growth is expected in Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (the so-called PIGS) plus the Netherlands, France, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus and the Czech Republic.

The detailed projections for Europe (Table 2.2) show that Britain is expected to have the highest inflation of any EU country aside from Estonia. And while unemployment is below the EU average, it is expected to fall by just 0.1 percentage point over two years. Of countries with unemployment above 5 per cent (the ‘full employment’ rate), only Greece, Portugal, Slovenia and Malta have a worse trend.

And all this assumes that the IMF have their numbers right this time. Like the Office of Budget Responsibility, they have had to downgrade their projections several times already. The British Chambers of Commerce recently downgraded their growth projections from 1.7% to 1.4%. With today’s dire economics statistcs, how long before the IMF have to reconsider their support of what they call the government’s “necessary front-loaded fiscal consolidation”.

  • http://twitter.com/bigwells87/status/57779366830157824 Ashley Wells

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • http://twitter.com/samboyd1/status/57779633571106817 Sam Boyd

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • http://twitter.com/status/status/ Rukiyah Khatun

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth http://bit.ly/fPSgwm

  • http://twitter.com/justmysay/status/57781205118099456 jbw

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • http://twitter.com/oxkev/status/57786911888117760 Oxford Kevin

    Iceland with biggest bank bust compared to size of economy then gives the finger to bankers beats UK http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 ht @leftfootfwd

  • http://twitter.com/drkmj/status/57789029357322240 DrKMJ

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • Mark Stevo

    I can’t get too worked up about this, although I appreciate the need for blogs to use sensationalist terms to get traffic. By 2012 the UK is forecast to be growing at 2.3%, higher than Germany, France, Netherlands etc. Given how much volatility there is I don’t put much store in differences in projections of ~1%.

  • http://twitter.com/tommilleruk/status/57800573860327425 Tom Miller

    RT @abelardinelli: check out the map… RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • http://twitter.com/samtarry/status/57805935187460096 Samuel Tarry

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • http://twitter.com/simpkins83/status/57808847083028482 Chris Simpkins

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth: http://bit.ly/e1GmP2 writes @wdjstraw

  • Anon E Mouse

    Will Straw – Come on man. A Fulbright Scholar can do better than this.

    Does nobody on this fine blog have anything positive to say about the Labour Party?

    (It’s like life before the election with the advantage of not seeing Evette Coopers frown on the TV every night as she predicts the end of the world…)

  • http://safeinasia.mandarinacord.com/2011/04/13/imf-shows-britain-lags-the-world-on-growth/ Safe Asian Traveling Tips and News – IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth
  • http://twitter.com/charceeholden/status/58605392468525056 Charlie Holden
  • http://twitter.com/augusteander/status/79382221282213888 AugustineAnderson

    IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth | Left Foot Forward http://bit.ly/jpickG #news

  • http://twitter.com/voces25/status/141942213713199106 jose

    RT @leftfootfwd: IMF shows Britain lags the world on growth http://t.co/vr03TJ1a