OECD warns policymakers for deep downturn

Global policymakers have been warned by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to "act now" to prevent "persistent and sluggish growth" and another economic downturn as it downgraded its global growth forecasts.

In the OECD's latest economic outlook published on Wednesday, the organization said that global growth had "languished over the past eight years as OECD economies have struggled to average only 2 percent per year, and emerging markets have slowed, with some falling into deep recession."

As such, it said that "the cycle of forecast optimism followed by disappointment" had caused it to downgrade its global growth forecast by some 0.3 percent for 2016 and 2017 since its projections in its last Outlook report in November. It now forecast that the global economy was set to grow by 3 percent in 2016 and "by only" 3.3 percent in 2017.

The OECD is an international economic organization of 34 countries including much of Europe, the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico and Turkey among others. It was set up in 1961 with the aim of promoting economic growth, prosperity and sustainable development and it also works with non-member countries to achieve those aims. It publishes an economic report looking at the prospects for the world economy twice a year.

"Low-growth trap"

The organization's chief economist warned that policymakers around the world needed to act to stop the "low-growth trap" of low investment, insufficient demand, unemployment, historically low global trade growth and a "slowed pace" of structural reform.

"High-growth path"

To do so, policymakers needed to coordinate fiscal and structural policies – rather than relying on monetary policies such as stimulus packages used by central banks in the U.S., euro zone, U.K. and Japan – to propel economies to the "high-growth path."

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