The International Monetary Fund is more likely to raise its world economic growth forecast for this year from its current 4.6 percent than to lower it despite higher oil prices, IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said on Monday.
Rato also called on the European Union and Japan to make growth-spurring structural reforms and asked the United States to cut its deficit.
In April, the IMF raised its forecast for this year's world economic growth to 4.6 from 4.1 percent, meaning the world economy would be growing at its fastest rate since the tech boom of 2000.
"Right now, even taking into account that we are revising upwards our forecasts for the average oil price for the year by about $5 a barrel, we do not see risks of cutting the world growth target that we set in the spring," Rato told a news conference during a conference organised by the IMF and Bank of Spain in Madrid.
"Our forecasts - although we make them totally public only in the autumn - in no way indicate that the world economy is going to grow by less than 4.6 percent. An upward (revision) could be more likely than a downward (revision)," he said.
The Madrid conference, attended by central bankers and academics from around the world, marks the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods agreement which created the IMF and World Bank. Apart from the opening session, the conference is being held behind closed doors.
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