IMF Sees Stronger Global Rebound From ’09 Recession (Sandrine Rastello and Timothy R. Homan)

  July 8 (Bloomberg) -- The International Monetary Fund said the global economic rebound next year will be stronger than it forecast in April as the financial system stabilizes and the pace of contractions from the U.S. to Japan moderates.

  The Washington-based lender said in a revised forecast released today that the world economy will expand 2.5 percent in 2010, compared with its April projection of 1.9 percent growth. A contraction this year will be 1.4 percent, worse than an April forecast for a 1.3 percent drop, the IMF said.

  The improved outlook for next year boosted U.S. stocks. The forecasts reflect differing stages of recovery across the globe, with emerging economies including China helping pull the world out of the worst recession in six decades, while Europe lags behind the U.S. and Japan. The fund warned the pickup is likely to be “sluggish” and called repairing the international banking system a priority.

  “The global economy is still in recession, but a recovery is coming,” IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “A weak recovery is a way of putting it,” he said, adding that unemployment around the world may keep rising into 2010.

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