The global economy faces a much more serious downturn than almost anyone has until now realised unless international governments take immediate co-ordinated action to deal with the credit crisis, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.
The IMF said it now believed the losses on US sub-prime assets and securities would ultimately total $1.45trn (£828bn), more than 50 per cent higher than its previous estimate of $945bn, and called for “a comprehensive set of measures that could arrest the currently destructive process”.
Britain, in particular, faces some of the worst fallout from the credit crunch, the IMF said, because it is particularly exposed to the problems of rapidly falling house prices and high personal indebtedness. “With house prices falling rapidly, arrears and losses are likely to rise several times over,” it warned.