IMF WARNS ZAMBIA

ZAMBIA and other countries with emerging markets will need to develop new structural reforms because their economies will worsen this year due to weak pick-up in global growth, says the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) update.

IMF economic counsellor and director of research Maurice Obstfeld says 2016 is going to be a year of ‘‘great challenges’’ and policymakers should be thinking about short-term resilience and the ways they can bolster it, but also about the longer-term growth prospects.

The WEO update underlines the urgent need for policymakers to raise actual and potential growth through a mix of demand support and structural reforms. According to the update, growth forecasts for most emerging markets and developing economies reveal a slower pick-up than previously predicted.