Recovery will be 'painful', IMF chief warns

Heavily indebted countries like the UK face years more “painful” austerity to get their economies back on an even keel, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde has warned.

Urging policymakers to deliver on their promises of co-ordinated global action to restore growth, she said: “For many economies, under present circumstances it will take years of fiscal adjustment to get back to pre-crisis levels. And again, without sufficient growth, we should not delude ourselves about how painful this is going to be.”

Speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics ahead of next month’s annual IMF meetings, she called on leaders to stop simply making promises and to start delivering on them.

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