Britain will grow at least as fast as its biggest eurozone neighbours over the next two years as a sharp economic slowdown in the single currency bloc drags on global growth, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Downgrades for Germany and Italy were to blame for the IMF’s decision to reduce its world growth forecast for this year to 3.5 per cent, below its October projection of 3.7 per cent.

The outlook for the UK was left unchanged at 1.5 per cent this year and 1.6 per cent in 2020, which means that Britain is expected to grow faster than Germany and Italy and just as fast as France. Of the nations in the G7, only the United States and Canada are expected to outpace