By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday said global growth is around 4.0 percent (4.0%), but is expected to improve in 2014.

Christine Lagarde, IMF’s Managing Director (MD) said this in her remark, ‘’The Global Economy in 2014’’ at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.

‘’Yet, global growth is still stuck in low gear. It remains below its potential, which we think is somewhere, around 4 percent. This means that the world could create more jobs before we would need to worry about the global inflation genie coming out of its bottle,’’ she said.

According to Lagarde, momentum strengthened in the latter half of 2013, and should strengthen further in 2014—largely due to improvements in the advanced economies.

However, she said crisis still lingers, but optimism is in the air, ‘’my great hope is that 2014 will prove momentous in another way—the year in which the “seven weak years”, economically speaking, slide into “seven strong years”. Lagarde said.

In the same vein, the IMF Chief warns of risks which may arise from financial market turbulence and the volatility of capital flows. ‘’The reaction to the Fed’s tapering has been calm so far, and this is good news, but there still could be some rough waters ahead,’’ she said.

Lagarde affirmed that overall, the direction is positive, but global growth is still too low, too fragile, and too uneven. Moreover, it is not enough to create the jobs for the more than 200 million people around the world who need them.

She advised that now the global economy looks more stable, policymakers’ big priority in 2014 is to fortify the feeble global recovery and make it sustainable.

‘’For the advanced economies in particular, it means that central banks should return to more conventional monetary policies only when robust growth is firmly rooted. At the same time, countries need to use the room created by unconventional monetary policies to put in place the reforms needed to jumpstart growth and jobs,’’ ‘she said.