Takara Global - Global financial leaders signaled a bitter note on the global economy citing Britain's potential exit from the European Union as a clear and present threat that ranks alongside China's uneven growth trajectory and discord over Eurozone interest rates.

Worries that the UK electorate is moving ever closer to voting to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum has unnerved the finance ministers, central bankers and other officials assembled in Washington for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring conferences.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde indicated policymakers' increased fears that a so-called "Brexit" could seriously derail Europe's already shaky economic recovery and have repercussions further afield at a time the global economy could ill-afford such turbulence.

"Policymakers clearly regard the possibility of a 'Brexit' as one of the serious downside risks on the horizon of global growth," said a Takara Global analyst. Ms Lagarde said as much in a press conference she gave just two days after the IMF reduced its 2016 global growth estimate for the fourth time in under a year.

Lagarde, who admitted it was her personal hope that Britain would stay in the EU, suggested that a divorce would culminate in years of financial uncertainty both for Britain and the European Union.

At a separate event, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici concurred, describing the political ramifications of a British vote to part with the bloc as "very bad news."