Paris: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde expects a significant pickup in global growth next year, led by emerging countries such as China and India.
"We will be seeing a serious pickup, if only because global trade has significantly improved," Lagarde said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview.
"Emerging markets, I'm thinking of China and India, are going to take the lead."
While concerns about the outlook for the US have caused the dollar to weaken to $1.30 per euro from as strong as $1.19 in early June, Lagarde dismissed the suggestion that the US may tip the world into a double-dip recession.
No cause for alarm
"We are seeing at the moment a reshuffling of the cards," she said.
"The active dynamic of growth around the world will move to different centers of gravity, but there is nothing alarming about it."
Lagarde said she puts the chances of a debt default by a euro-area country as "very low" because governments in the region promised to support each other when they agreed in May to create a Luxembourg-based fund to back national debt issues.
"We've demonstrated determination to support our currency, to stay together and reaffirm our solidarity," she said.
"We're not going to let any of the Eurozone members down."
Lagarde said she is "very confident" that France will be able to reduce its deficit to 6 per cent of output in 2011.
