IMF Predicts Fast Global Growth, Lingering Dollar Woes
The world economy is poised to grow at its fastest rate in seven years during 1995, the International Monetary Fund said in a survey of global economic conditions released yesterday.</br></br>But that sunny forecast is clouded by the continued weakness of the dollar and lingering investor uncertainty following the collapse of the Mexican peso, fund officials warned.</br></br>The fund, whose members meet here this week, offered a discouraging outlook for three of the world's largest economies, predicting a slowdown in the United States and continued difficulties for Japan and Germany as exporters in those nations struggle to cope with the sharp appreciation of their currencies against the dollar.</br></br>The dollar's declines "threaten to exacerbate inflationary pressures in the United States, risk weakening the expansion in Europe and could jeopardize recovery in Japan," the IMF warned in its annual "World Economic Outlook."</br></br>The plunging dollar is expected to dominate discussions among finance ministers and central bank presidents from the Group of Seven major industrial economies -- the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada -- when they gather in Washington tomorrow for spring meetings of the 179-nation IMF and the World Bank.