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Report: Key global economic indicators hit lowest level since 2016

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Headline economic indicators have hit their lowest levels since spring 2016 as the global economy sinks into a "synchronised stagnation" period, research by the Brookings Institution and the Financial Times published Sunday shows.

Why it matters: The Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery research shows weak growth in some major economies and "essentially no growth or even mild contraction" ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C., this week — the first with Kristalina Georgieva as the IMF’s new managing director.

  • The findings build on similar gloomy outlooks from the International Monetary Fund and the Institute of International Finance, which on Thursday lowered its growth forecast for 2019.

The big picture: Georgieva warned this month that the global economy "is now in a synchronized slowdown." The IMF now expects slower growth in 90% of the world and that "growth this year will fall to its lowest rate since the beginning of the decade."

  • Per Axios' Dion Rabouin, "The IMF and World Bank ... said they expect to write down their 2019 growth projections again — the third downward revision this year — at their meetings next week."

Yes, but: IIF deputy chief economist Elina Ribakova told Axios the organization remains upbeat on the outlook despite its revision, and it expects central banks to "continue easing against the backdrop of slowing growth and assume no further deterioration in trade tensions."

Read the Brookings data analysis:

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