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• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) by keeping its growth projection for India unchanged at 6.7 per cent for the current fiscal, said India will again emerge as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, at least for the next two years.

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• According to the IMF forecast, India’s growth will rise steadily to 7.4 per cent in 2018-19 and 7.8 per cent in the year after.

• However, China’s expansion will slow down to 6.6 per cent and 6.4 per cent in 2018 and 2019, respectively, against 6.8 per cent in 2017, the multilateral body said.
• The IMF raised the global growth projections by 20 basis points each to 3.9 per cent for both 2018 and 2019, partly driven by high-than-expected expansion of the US economy following a cut in corporate taxes by the U.S. administration.
• On the upside, the cyclical rebound could prove stronger in the near term as the pickup in activity and easier financial conditions reinforce each other, the multilateral body said.
• If global sentiment remains strong and inflation muted, then financial conditions could remain loose into the medium term, leading to a buildup of financial vulnerabilities in advanced and emerging market economies alike.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

• The IMF, also known as the Fund, was conceived at a UN conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944.
• The 44 countries at that conference sought to build a framework for economic cooperation to avoid a repetition of the competitive devaluations that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
• Now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 189 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.
• The IMF's primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.
• IMF is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Source

·         Indian Express, The Mint and IMF