IMF to cut growth forecast for UK in gloomy global outlook The weakness in the economy in the first half of the year, when GDP shrank by 0.7pc, is thought to have accounted for the IMF's revisions and will renew questions about the Government's growth strategy. In May, the IMF said that further radical measures would be needed if the recovery failed to take off. Estimates of the IMF's outlook for UK growth came as a German newspaper claimed to have seen a copy of the fund's new forecasts. It reported that global growth will be revised down from 3.4pc to 3.3pc this year, and from 3.9pc to 3.6pc in 2013. It also said the IMF expects the eurozone to shrink by 0.4pc this year, and grow by just 0.2pc in 2013. Although the UK forecast will be cut, the focus of next week's IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Tokyo, will be on the eurozone. The IMF's medium-term outlook for the UK is expected to be reasonably resilient, with its prediction for growth in 2013 unchanged at 1.4pc. Philip Shaw, UK economist at Investec, said: "The IMF was talking about very modest growth this year, which despite the likelihood of a strong third quarter figure, looks a little ambitious. Instead it is likely to move its forecast into modestly negative territory, perhaps -0.1pc, and keep its projection for next year at around 1.5pc. Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, warned that the global outlook would be weaker than previously expected in a recent speech. "We continue to project a gradual recovery, but global growth will likely be a bit weaker than we had anticipated even in July, and our forecast has trended downward over the last 12 months," she said. Earlier this week, IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said the global economy would not be back in "decent shape" until 2018 at the earliest.