The economic outlook for 2016 – from BBC News – By Andrew Walker BBC World Service economics correspondent – 6 January 2016
What can we expect in 2016 from the world economy?
If the mainstream forecasters are right slightly better than last year.
The International Monetary Fund, for example, forecasts growth of 3.6% this year after 3.1% in 2015.
Last year’s figure is rather sluggish; this year’s stronger but still not all that impressive.
The IMF will produce an updated forecast later this month, but in a guest article for the German newspaper Handelsblatt, the agency’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, warned that this year will be disappointing.
The recovery from the Great Recession, which followed the international financial crisis, continues. It’s just not very convincing.
This is just a forecast of course and like all such exercises it’s surrounded by a cloud of uncertainty.
So what are the big issues for next year, the factors that will determine whether things turn out better or worse than the IMF and others currently predict?
Disruption from higher US rates?
Once again, two factors dominate, and they come from the world’s two largest economies: the United States and China.
In the US the long haul back to a more normal interest rate policy began at the end of last year. The Federal Reserve finally raised its main interest rate target from the level of practically zero it has had since the end of 2008. Read more:
