‘IMF wrong about UK economy’

LONDON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) underestimated the strength of the United Kingdom economy when warning against the government’s austerity programme, said its managing director Christine Lagarde. “We got it wrong,” Lagarde said on “Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday. A year after the IMF’s chief economist, Oliver Blanchard, said UK budget cutting risked “playing with fire”, the Washington-based lender said in April the UK economy will grow 2.9 per cent this year, the fastest pace among the Group of Seven nations. Bloomberg