IMF Predicts Strong Growth, Urges Caution
The industrialized economies are booming this year, and governments should be ready to hit the brakes if inflation shows signs of increasing, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund.</br></br>The outlook, prepared in mid-August, has been distributed to member governments but is not to be made public until later this month. A copy was obtained by the AP-Dow Jones News Service.</br></br>In its latest semiannual World Economic Outlook, the fund revised upward its estimate for the growth of economic activity in the industrialized world this year by a full percentage point, although the IMF economists say there is still little evidence of overheating.</br></br>The fund's economists now anticipate a real, or inflation-adjusted, growth rate of 3.8 percent for 1988, compared with the 2.8 percent increase projected in their April report.</br></br>They say the fast pace of the current expansion-at six years old, the longest since World War II-is likely to moderate in 1989 to 2.8 percent, up slightly from their April estimate of 2.6 percent.