International Monetary Fund's Forecast For Global Economy Cools

Even as experts are signaling caution in their outlook for the automotive sector, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is lowering its forecast of economic growth for this year.

In its April 2016 report, the IMF reduced its January 2016 projection of global economic growth from 3.4% to 3.2%, citing a variety of risk factors that the IMF sees as becoming more likely, such as:

• potential financial instability in emerging markets and in China in particular,
• the effect of low oil prices on oil exporting nations,
• a reduction in consumer demand flowing from the poor performance in equity markets in late 2015 and early 2016,
• geopolitical conflict and terrorism,
• and Britain's looming vote on a potential exit from the EU.