Fix your roofs as sun still shining: Lagarde on global economic prospects

In a strong message to the world economies, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said on Thursday they should fix the roofs when sun was still shining.

Explaining the recent lowering of IMF growth forecast for the global economy, she said the forecast for two major economies have not been revised as yet.

"Sun is still shining, so please fix the roofs. This is the message we are giving with our modest downward revision to global economic growth," Lagarde said here at a session of the World Economic Forum.

"We have not revised our forecast for US and China as they have take certain steps that would keep them growing," the IMF Managing Director said.

While noting that there are some major risks that could precipitate, Lagarde said if Chinese economy slows down a bit, that would be fine but if they fall faster then that could be a problem.

On Monday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth projections for 2019 and 2020 to 3.5 per cent and 3.6 per cent respectively, citing slowdown in several advanced economies around the world more rapidly than previously anticipated.

The revised global growth rates are 0.2 and 0.1 percentage point below its