International Monetary Fund | January 2025 STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL JAN 2025 WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK UPDATE Global Growth: Divergent and Uncertain Global growth is projected at 3.3 percent both in 2025 and 2026, below the historical (2000–19) average of 3.7 percent. The forecast for 2025 is broadly unchanged from that in the October 2024 World Economic Outlook (WEO), primarily on account of an upward revision in the United States offsetting downward revisions in other major economies. Global headline inflation is expected to decline to 4.2 percent in 2025 and to 3.5 percent in 2026, converging back to target earlier in advanced economies than in emerging market and developing economies. Medium-term risks to the baseline are tilted to the downside, while the near-term outlook is characterized by divergent risks. Upside risks could lift already-robust growth in the United States in the short run, whereas risks in other countries are on the downside amid elevated policy uncertainty. Policy-generated disruptions to the ongoing disinflation process could interrupt the pivot to easing monetary policy, with implications for fiscal sustainability and financial stability. Managing these risks requires a keen policy focus on balancing trade-offs between inflation and real activity, rebuilding buffers, and lifting medium-term growth prospects through stepped-up structural reforms as well as stronger multilateral rules and cooperation. Forces Shaping the Outlook The global economy is holding steady, although the degree of grip varies widely across countries. Global GDP growth in the third quarter of 2024 was 0.1 percentage point below that predicted in the October 2024 WEO, after disappointing data releases in some Asian and European economies. Growth in China, at 4.7 percent in year-over-year terms, was below expectations. Faster-than-expected net export growth only partly offset a faster-than-expected slowdown in consumption amid delayed stabilization in the property market and persistently low consumer confidence. Growth in India also slowed more than expected, led by a sharper-than-expected deceleration in industrial activity. Growth continued to be subdued in the euro area (with Germany’s performance lagging that of other euro area countries), largely reflecting continued weakness in manufacturing and goods exports even as consumption picked up in line with the recovery in real incomes. In Japan, output contracted mildly owing to temporary supply disruptions. By contrast, momentum in the United States remained robust, with the economy expanding at a rate of 2.7 percent in year-over-year terms in the third quarter, powered by strong consumption. Global disinflation continues, but there are signs that progress is stalling in some countries and that elevated inflation is persistent in a few cases. The global median of sequential core inflation has been just slightly above 2 percent for the past few months. Nominal wage growth is showing signs of moderation, alongside indications of continuing normalization in labor markets. Although core goods price inflation has fallen back to or below trend, services price inflation is still running above pre–COVID-19 averages in many economies, most notably the United States and the euro area. Pockets of elevated inflation, reflecting a range of idiosyncratic factors, also persist in some emerging market and developing economies in Europe and Latin America.
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