The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that “the global economy has turned a corner” after the harrowing start to 2009 but that only a thorough restructuring of the financial system could prevent a return to crisis and pave the way for solid growth within the next 18 months.

In its Global Financial Stability Report, an assessment that has brought widespread praise from economists as a thorough analysis of the system’s health, the IMF praised the mixture of bank rescue and stimulus packages. But it said the policies had not changed the fundamental dynamic by which debt-burdened banks and consumers drag on economic growth.

“The risk of a reintensification of the adverse feedback loop between the real and financial sectors remains significant as long as banks remain under strain and households and financial institutions need to reduce leverage,” the IMF wrote in its Global Financial Stability Report.

To head off a new chapter in the crisis, the IMF called on governments to strengthen bank capital and establish effective policies to clear bad loans off bank balance sheets. It also called for “great care” in winding down crisis-driven rescue policies to avoid bringing on a new crisis.

Broadly speaking, the IMF said the global economy still suffered from a shortage of credit, thanks to the crisis at the heart of the Western financial system that stemmed initially from huge losses linked to the US housing market. Now, loan write-offs linked to a searing recession are amplifying the problem. “When set against projected demand for credit by the public and private sectors,” the IMF wrote, it appears that forecast supply could “fall short of even anemic private sector demand.”

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