India, China to remain fastest growing major economies, says IMF

New Delhi [India], Oct 15 (ANI): Amid a synchronised slow down in the global economy, India and China are expected to remain the fastest-growing major economies in the world with projected growth of 6.1 per cent in 2019, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF).
IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released on Tuesday said India and China are projected to grow at a rate of 7 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively in 2020.
"In India, growth softened in 2019 as corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, together with concerns about the health of the nonbank financial sector, weighed on-demand," the report said.
In July this year, the IMF had put India's growth rate at 7 per cent for the current fiscal owing to "weaker-than-expected outlook" of domestic demand. In April, it had said that India will grow at 7.3 per cent in 2019.
In contrast, Pakistan is expected to grow at a rate of 3.3 per cent in the year 2018 and 2.4 in the year 2020.
The IMF also projected the global economy to grow only at 3 per cent this year and 3.4 per cent next year.
"The global economy is in a synchronised slow down and we are, once again, downgrading growth for 2019 to 3 per cent, its slowest pace since the global financial crisis. Growth continues to be weakened by rising trade barriers and increasing geopolitical tensions," the IMF said.
The monetary body also estimated that the US-China trade tensions will cumulatively reduce the level of global GDP by 0.8 per cent by 2020.
"If all 2018 and 2019 tariffs between US and China were lifted, global GDP would be boosted by 0.8 per cent," IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said addressing a press conference in Washington D.C. (ANI)