Regional Economic Outlook, Europe, IMF, November 2007
Key findings of the IMF outlook:
- Strong fundamentals should allow to overcome the current turbulences quite well.
- Nonetheless, growth is set to ease in 2008 in nearly all countries.
- Protracted credit market tightness constitutes a key downside risk to this outlook, especially for advanced economies.
- A continuing tightness of credit would have downsides for the real economy.
- Emerging Europe has so far remained largely unscathed by the financial turbulence, owing to its limited reliance on interbank markets and complex financial products.
- Risks for emerging Europe have also risen, especially for those countries that have been funding large current account imbalances with foreign bank borrowing.
- In this regard, the financial turbulence may herald a healthy correction to past exuberance, bringing risk spreads closer to fundamentals, improving credit discipline, and helping to reduce external imbalances in emerging countries.
- Central banks will have to continue to stand ready to provide liquidity to deal with systemic risks.
- Looking further forward, the baseline forecast presumes these risks to dissipate gradually, and a further tightening may then be required.
- Financial innovation has been and will remain an important source of strengthened performance.
- However, a balanced review of prudential arrangements, financial safety nets, and crisis resolution mechanisms is necessary to strengthen their overall effectiveness.