OECD expects upwards tweak in next GDP forecasts

PARIS (Reuters) - The OECD's next set of forecasts for economic growth this year are likely to be better than the ones it published in November, Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said on Tuesday.

The Paris-based agency is due to publish limited revisions of its macroeconomic forecasts in March and fuller ones in May, having predicted in November that global economic growth would be 3.4 percent this year after a 1.7 percent GDP contraction in 2009.

Referring to the industrialised world's main central banks, Gurria said his understanding was the withdrawal of the policy stimulus deployed to combat the economic downturn was not imminent as far as low official interest rates was concerned.

"What they're saying is 'we don't know and perhaps we are not in the fully self-sustained growth phase yet," he said, talking of the central banks of the United States, euro zone, Britain and Japan.

"Basically we are talking here about a few decimal points," said Gurria, stressing the recovery from recession was expected to remain modest given the drag of unemployment and the fact that money was set to be dearer now that the credit boom had ended.

The International Monetary Fund published sharply increased forecasts for the world economy in 2010 on Tuesday, saying that the recovery from the global financial crisis that triggered recession across the industrialised world in 2008 and 2009 had been stronger than expected.

In an update to its World Economic Outlook, the IMF said GDP at global level was expected to expand by 3.9 percent in 2010, much more than its October projection of 3.1 percent. It said next year's GDP was set to edge up further to 4.3 percent.

(Reporting by Brian Love)