The International Monetary Fund has warned that central banks around the world are failing to stop deflation.

Its half-yearly World Economic Outlook says that urgent action is needed to reverse a slowdown in global trade, and to break a pattern of low growth, low job creation, and high debts.

The gloomy report adds that a wave of protectionist policies since 2012 have led to a fall-off in international trade.

It also adds that it believes that there is a perception that globalisation is only benefiting a few well-off nations and that this is obstructing trade. The IMF says that countries who feel left behind by globalisation need to be helped.

"The pace of new trade policy initiatives at the global level has slowed notably. At the same time, the uptick in protectionism since the global financial crisis is not innocuous," it added. The EU/US TTIP trade agreement looks set to fail, and Donald Trump secured the nomination of the Republican Party running on a protectionist trade platform.

"Policymakers need to address the concerns of trade-affected workers, including through effective support for retraining, skill building and occupational and geographic mobility, to mitigate the downsides of further trade integration for the trade agenda to revive," the report says.

It described the slowdown in trade as "remarkable."

This comes after the World Trade Organisation cut its forecast for global trade growth in 2016 by more than a third. This would be the lowest growth rate since the onset of the global economic crisis.