国际英语新闻:IMF spring meetings conclude amid improving but uneven global economic recovery

The U.S. economy is picking up, and is expected to grow 2.8 percent this year, the IMF said, although economists outside the IMF note the growth ratio is not enough to get millions of jobless Americans back to work.

"For the most part, the brakes are gone" in the U.S., IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said. "The U.S. recovery is the strongest among advanced economies and therefore in a way it's pulling the world."

The Fund expects good news for the U.S. in 2015, with a growth projection of 3.9 percent, the IMF announced earlier this week.

Lachman said underlying growth conditions in the U.S. seem to be favorable, especially in the energy and housing sectors of the economy. Unlike in 2013, the U.S. economy in 2014 and 2015 will not be facing very strong headwinds.

However, Lachman said it is unlikely that the U.S. will grow on a sustained basis by more than 3 percent a year. As such, the rest of the world will not be able to rely on the old role of the U.S. as the locomotive for the world's economic growth.

"It would seem that each of the major economic blocs would need to generate their own growth,"he said.

Moreover, it remains unclear whether U.S. growth will translate into jobs growth, as recent economic gains have not put a significant dent in the U.S. jobless rate.

Millions of Americans remain unemployed, and the long-term unemployed -- the number of those jobless for 27 weeks or more -- stands at a staggering 3.7 million, accounting for 35.8 percent of the total number of unemployed individuals, according to the U.S. Labor Department.