WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its projections of the UK gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2017 by 0.3 percent to 1.7 percent due to more sluggish economic performance in the first quarter, than it was expected when estimating the country's GPD projections in April, the IMF said Monday in its July's update of the World Economic Outlook economic overview.
"The growth forecast has also been revised down for the United Kingdom for 2017 on weaker-than-expected activity in the first quarter," the IMF said.
29 June 2017, 12:27 GMT
In April, the IMF increased its UK GPD growth forecast by 0.5 percent to 2.0 percent in 2017 and by 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent in 2018, considering moderate Brexit's impact on the country's economy. While the projections for 2017 were revised to 1.7 percent in July's overview, the projections for 2018 remained unchanged.
The IMF has not revised its World Output projections since April. According to the document, the world GDP growth rate was estimated to total 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018. According to the fresh estimates, the US GDP growth rate is expected to amount to 2.1 percent both in 2017 and 2018, while China's GDP is due to increase by 6.7 percent in 2017 and by 6.4 percent in 2018.
