CDF Annual Report 2018
Global economic expansion slowed in the second half of 2018 following two years of strong performance, tariff increases between the United and a rise in policy uncertainty in many of the leading economies. Global growth reached 3.8 per cent in second half of the year. In the advanced economies,
well as policy uncertainty in many areas, including the concerns about a no-Brexit deal. Among emerging market economies, China’s economic growth rate tightening, a slowdown in US imports, and a weakening in import demand.
I draw attention to the continued instability in the US change in the Federal Reserve’s plan designed to mop-up some of the excess liquidity pumped into the economy since the ‘Great Recession’. I refer to halt the planned gradual rise in interest rates. Such a change in policy increases the risk that low-cost debt rather than productivity will generate growth and increases the possibility that a burst of the credit bubble will lead to a recession worse than the last.