Global economy slowing, experts say

WASHINGTON — Finance officials from the world’s major powers acknowledged Friday that the global economy is in a slowdown, but they forecast that growth will pick up by the second half of this year, thanks to interest-rate policies from the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks.

Officials of the Group of 20 major economies said at the conclusion of their talks that growth had slowed at the end of last year and the beginning of this year due to factors such as turbulent financial markets and heightened tension over trade and interest rates.

But with a switch led by the Federal Reserve to looser monetary policy this year, the stage has been set for a rebound in growth.

Officials, however, cautioned that risks remain, chiefly from trade disputes between the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China.

“We must be mindful of an escalation of trade tensions,” said Finance Minister Taro Aso of Japan, which holds the chairmanship of the G20 this year. He said that free trade had allowed Japan and Germany, countries devastated after the Second World War, to rebuild and become economic powers again.

“The free-trading system must be upheld,” Aso said.

Aso said there was a broad agreement among financial officials that the current slowdown should be temporary as long as the Fed and other central banks carry through with their plans to provide support for growth.

The Fed, after raising interest rates four times last year, announced at their March meeting they planned to hold rates steady in light of a slowdown in the United States. Fed officials cut their forecast for rate increases this year from two to none.