tailieunhanh - Rapidly Weakening Prospects Call for New Policy Stimulus

Lower interest rates should also boost domestic investment and consumption. Lower interest rates make it relatively cheaper for firms to borrow money to finance investment in plants and equipment, research and development, or marketing new lines of products. Lower interest rates tend to promote consumption both by making saving relatively less attractive, and also by freeing up money for consumption by allowing consumers to refinance debt at lower interest rates. This is most notable with mortgages, which can typically be refinanced when interest rates fall. This frees up money from debt payments for other forms of consumption. (While. | FOR RELEASE International Monetary Fund November 6 2008 Washington 20431 USA Rapidly Weakening Prospects Call for New Policy Stimulus Prospects for global growth have deteriorated over the past month as financial sector deleveraging has continued and producer and consumer confidence have fallen. Accordingly world output is projected to expand by percent in 2009 down by some percentage point of GDP relative to the projections in the October WEO. In advanced economies output is forecast to contract on a full-year basis in 2009 the first such fall in the post-war period. In emerging economies growth is projected to slow appreciably but still reach 5 percent in 2009. However these forecasts are based on current policies. Global action to support financial markets and provide further fiscal stimulus and monetary easing can help limit the decline in world growth. Global activity is slowing quickly World growth is projected to slow from 5 percent in 2007 to 3 percent in 2008 and to just over 2 percent in 2009 with the downturn led by advanced economies Table 1 . Activity in the advanced economies is now expected to contract by percent on an annual basis in 2009 down percentage points from the October 2008 WEO projections. This would be the first annual contraction during the postwar period although the downturn is broadly comparable in magnitude to those that occurred in 1975 and 1982 Figures 1-2 . A recovery is projected to begin late in 2009. Figure 1. Real GDP Growth and Trend Percent change Source IMF staff estimates. The . economy will suffer as households respond to depreciating real and financial assets and tightening financial conditions. Growth in the euro area will be hard hit by tightening financial conditions and falling confidence. In Japan the support to growth from net exports is expected to decline. Figure 2. Real GDP Growth Deviation from Trend Source IMF staff estimates. The downward revisions to 2009 real GDP growth projections are somewhat .