The International Monetary Fund lowered its revised 2013 world economy outlook by 0.2 percent to 3.9 percent, according to a report on Monday.

The updated World Economic Outlook released by the Finance Ministry showed that the world economy growth projection for this year remains almost unchanged, compared with 3.5 percent forecast in April.

Despite the recent economic slowdown, first quarter growth was better than expected so only a little change occurred in the yearly outlook, said the report.

It pointed out, however, that the global economic recovery is slowing down as the eurozone crisis reemerged in the second quarter. U.S. recovery is weakened and emerging economics are also showing less-than-expected growth due to the worsened international economic situation and sluggish domestic consumption.

IMF maintained the April outlook in terms of growth of developed countries for this year as 1.4 percent but decreased it by 0.2 percent to 1.9 percent for 2013. It expected the U.S. to slow down in recovery, marking 2 percent growth in 2012 and 2.3 percent in 2013.

In case of newly industrialized Asian economics including South Korea, Taiwian, Singapore and Hong Kong, IMF forecast a growth of 5.6 percent in 2012 and 5.9 percent in 2013. 


By Park Min-young
(claire@heraldcorp.com)