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The United Arab Emirates should enact stronger measures to curb real-estate speculation in Dubai to prevent an “unsustainable” surge in prices, the International Monetary Fund said today.

“It’s very hard to spot bubbles until they burst,” Masood Ahmed, head of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, said in an interview in the Gulf Arab emirate. “There is evidence that prices of real estate have been rising at a very rapid pace over the past 18 months.”

The US is on the brink of losing its status as the world’s largest economy, and is likely to slip behind China this year, sooner than widely anticipated, according to the world’s leading statistical agencies.
The US has been the global leader since overtaking the UK in 1872. Most economists previously thought China would pull ahead in 2019.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ukraine's loss of its territory in the east would force the International Monetary Fund to re-design its $17 billion bailout of the country, and would require additional financing, the Fund warned on Thursday.

The IMF also said a deterioration in relations between Ukraine and Russia, which buys a quarter of Kiev's exports, could further hurt Ukraine's economy and also force an adjustment to its bailout, approved by the IMF board on Wednesday.

MOSCOW—Russia has already slid into recession and its central bank should be ready to tighten monetary policy, while the government needs to consider tightening fiscal conditions, the head of the International Monetary Fund's mission to Russia, Antonio Spilimbergo, said Wednesday.

Hit by geopolitical crisis in neighboring Ukraine, Russia is on track to post a 0.2% economic growth this year, the IMF forecasts, slashing its growth projection from 1.3%.

Eastern Europe’s vulnerability to sharp withdrawals of foreign capital has been heightened as the U.S. Federal Reserve scales back stimulus and the standoff over Ukraine escalates, the International Monetary Fund said.

The International Monetary Fund raised its economic growth forecast for China on Monday but warned that its financial system faces risks due to the rapid expansion of debt.

The IMF's 0.3 percentage point increase to 7.5 percent in its growth outlook for China may help reassure investors who worry the world's second-largest economy might be slowing too abruptly.

The International Monetary Fund is confident Ukraine can meet the requirements attached to a potential loan program even amid rising political tensions on its eastern border, a fund spokesman said.

“One of the fund’s fundamental roles is to work in these difficult situations, and that’s why we are committed and engaged in Ukraine,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters today in Washington. “The fund only approves the use of its resources if it is satisfied that the member has the capacity to implement the program and is committed to do so. In this case we believe that it is the case.”

Many developing countries in Asia must step up tax reforms because they face increasing borrowing costs as capital markets recover from the global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has said.

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board will receive within days a staff report detailing Ukraine’s proposed loan program, in an effort to approve emergency financing by early May, a board official said.

South Korea came under fresh pressure on Friday to let the won rise faster, when the International Monetary Fund said it was carrying an abnormally big current account surplus and that more dollar purchases would do more harm than good.

The IMF said in a report based on its late 2013 annual policy review that the won was estimated to be as much as 8 percent undervalued, while saying South Korea appeared to have been intervening actively to resist the currency's appreciation.