The IMF has adjusted its projections down by 0.3% for both 2015 and 2016 to 3.5% and 3.7% respectively.
The move follows similar steps taken by the World Bank announced last week. The IMF said a boost from the fall in the oil price will be ‘be more than offset by negative factors’.
These factors include ‘investment weakness’ resulting from diminished expectations about medium-term growth in many advanced and emerging market economies.
The markets have largely shrugged the cuts off however, with the FTSE 100 trading up 30 points by mid-morning.
It would appear a combination of anticipation of Thursday’s eurozone QE announcement and the fact that the World Bank beat the IMF to the punch has limited the impact of the news.
Further evidence of the US economy decoupling from the rest of the world came in the form of an upgrade to the IMF’s projection for next year by 0.5% to 3.6%.
In stark contrast Russia is expected to contract by 3% in 2015, while China is projected to grow by 6.8%, 0.3% less than forecast in October.
Europe was among the downgrade group with the IMF now expecting just 1.2% growth across the continent this year rather than 1.4%.
The UK forecast was firmly on the middle ground between the US and the rest of the world with the IMF’s projection of 2.7% growth in 2015 remaining unchanged.
"Economic forecasts of this nature are more like a dowsing rod than a GPS tracking system, but they do confirm what market behaviour suggests- that uncertainty has increased in recent months," said Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The falling oil price is of course a major source of instability, though as the IMF notes this should be a boost to global economic activity, albeit with winners and losers," Khalaf added. "The US remains teacher’s pet, with the growth forecast for the world’s most influential economy revised sharply upwards."