Joe Wallen
FIGURES released this week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have painted a damning picture of the future of the UK’s economy.
The IMF singled the UK out as a ‘notable exception’ to an improving global economic outlook and cut its prediction of the UK’s annual economic growth rate this year a mere 1.7%.
Even Greece, which received three separate bailout loans since 2010 amidst a total economic collapse, is predicted to outstrip the UK’s growth over the next five years.
The IMF has predicted that the UK´s economy will have grown by just 10.3% by 2022, while the Greeks economy will have grown by 11.5% during the same period.
Speaking to the press, Maurice Obstfeld, the chief economist at the IMF said that the slashing of the fund’s long-term outlook for the UK was directly as a consequence of leaving the EU.
“We forecast in the pre-referendum period, as did others, there would be long run negative effects on the British economy,”
“I think we’re starting to see those,” he said.
Treasury officials in the UK have already said that the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, will have to face ‘a bloodbath’ in the public finances in his upcoming budget.
Mr Hammond faces the dilemma of maintaining government spending while accounting for the tanking economy.
