Germany expects IMF to lift global growth forecast: government official

[October 09, 2017]  BERLIN (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to nudge up its growth forecast for the global economy in its World Economic Outlook due on Tuesday, a senior German government official said.

The official said on Monday that a meeting of economic policymakers in Washington for this week's IMF and World Bank annual meetings was a good opportunity to look back at the priorities of Germany's G20 presidency.

"If you look at our G20 presidency, you can see that some of it has been adopted by the IMF in its recent reports," the government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official pointed to the priority of consolidating national budgets, cutting debt and making economies more resilient against future shocks through structural reforms.

The IMF is also backing Germany's G20 initiative to improve conditions for private investments in African countries, dubbed Compact with Africa, the official said, adding that the number of participating African countries would rise to ten from seven.

Germany will hand over the G20 presidency to Argentina in December. This week's IMF/World Bank gatherings in Washington are the last international meeting of this kind attended by outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber,; editing by Joseph Nasr)

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