The International Monetary Fund said Friday the Asia-Pacific (AsPac) region faces a challenging year, having to cope with an expected global slowdown led by the United States and a sharp spike in inflation. It said growth will likely fall 1.25 percentage points to 6.2 percent as exports to the United States and the European Union weaken this year. “At the same time as growth is starting to slow, inflation is rising across the region,” David Burton, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, told a news conference, citing Indonesia, China and Vietnam as notable cases. Burton said rising prices for food, especially rice, had begun pushing up headline figures and had also begun to produce “second-round effects” as inflation expectations became entrenched. Inflation “is a significant, important issue which needs to be addressed ... worrying about inflation ... is now more important than worrying about growth” in some countries, he said. __
