Swiss economy predicted to grow 3% by end of year
- by Patty Hardy
- in Business
- — Oct 11, 2018
Lagarde told reporters the Fed's rate hikes were justified by fundamentals.
Regulatory tightening has slowed the buildup of risks in China's financial sector and made it harder for weaker borrowers to obtain credit, the International Monetary Fund said in its semiannual "Global Financial Stability Report", pointing to a surge in corporate bond defaults in 2017 and 2018.
"We have supported the move of China toward (currency) flexibility", she said, adding that the International Monetary Fund has encouraged Chinese authorities to "go down that path".
Lagarde also touched on the economic situation in eurozone member Italy, warning Rome that it was well-advised to abide by European Union fiscal rules and adhere to the bloc's financial stability regulations amid concerns that the country's 2019 budget could exacerbate financial problems.
Lagarde said central bank rate increases such as those by the policy-setting US Federal Reserve were justified by fundamentals.
The head of the World Trade Organization warned that a "full-blown commercial war" could shrink global trade by almost 18% and also knock worldwide GDP, hurting the US, China, and others.
The ongoing trade war between the USA and China could start having material effects on the economies of both countries within the coming years, according to new projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A raising of US interest rates has also helped send emerging market currencies into a tail spin, as countries that borrowed heavily in dollars race to pay back their debt.
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Parts of the Florida panhandle near Pensacola down to Anna Maria Island, including Tampa Bay, are under storm surge watch . The storm center was located about 90 miles south of Cozumel, Mexico, or 225 miles southwest of the western tip of Cuba.
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Last year, the club also launched its own mental health initiative for staff, Red Minds. The theme for this year is "Young people and mental health in a changing world".
Market participants "appear complacent" about the potential risks from a "sudden, sharp tightening of conditions" - like rising interest rates or declining access to capital.
They show that a burst of strong growth, fueled partly by United States tax cuts and rising demand for imports, was starting to wane.
With much of the US-China tariff war's impact to be felt next year, the Fund cut its 2019 US growth forecast to 2.5% from 2.7% previously, while it cut China's 2019 growth forecast to 6.2% from 6.4%.
The body now expects the US economy to grow at a rate of 2.5 percent in 2019, a 0.2 percentage point decline from its April estimates.
Pakistan had a trade deficit of $17.99 billion in the last financial year (July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018), which was $12.4 billion in 2016-17 and $4.9 billion the year before that, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
The announcement followed the highest single-day loss in a decade in the stock market, which plunged by over 1,300 points, losing nearly Rs 270 billion of its capitalisation. In September, Trump imposed tariffs on almost $200 billion of Chinese imports, with China responding with higher tariffs on about $60 billion of US imports.
"Clearly as a result of (rate hikes). we see and we will continue to see capital flow movements", she added.
