IMF: UK economy to shrink amid global inflation-led hard landing

'Grim reading'

The UK economy will shrink by 0.3% this year, amid a hard landing for the whole global economy if stubbornly elevated inflation keeps interest rates high, the International Monetary Fund has said in a downbeat report.

The IMF's gloomy forecast for the UK points to a belief Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's "Budget for growth" announced last month will not be enough to bring it up from the global economic doldrums. While the IMF predicts the UK economy will shrink by 0.3% this year, this is still a marked improvement on the 0.6% contraction it had forecast in January. Recession 'absolutely necessary' to get inflation under control The IMF's forecasts for the UK, featured in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook, is worse than Hunt expected, and has the UK missing his two main fiscal rules; to have both ...