International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in an interview on Friday that the global economy would be worse without negative interest rate in Europe and Japan as negative interest rates helped to support global growth and inflation.

"If we had not had those negative rates, we would be in a much worse place today, with inflation probably lower than where it is, with growth probably lower than where we have it," she said.

Lagarde noted that time was needed to analyse effects of negative interest rates.

IMF managing director pointed out that the IMF could upgrade its economic growth forecast for China.