The short- and medium-term global growth forecast has remained just above the 3% mark, according to the International Monetary Fund’s October 2024 World Economic Outlook.
Highlighting the IMF’s findings in its Weekly Review, Bureau for Economic Research (BER) economists noted that the forecast had remained at 3.2% for both 2024 and 2025.
“Relative to its April forecast, the IMF has lifted its outlook for the US and UK while lowering it for the Eurozone, Japan, and China. India’s economic output projections for 2024 and 2025 remained steady, and the IMF expects the country to expand by 7% and 6.5% over the next two years,” the economists noted.
A BER report on sub-Saharan Africa's growth also showed a slight downward revision for 2024, but an upward revision for 2025.
“On the inflation front, the IMF believes most advanced economies have now proven their steady return to inflation targets. The IMF projects global headline inflation will slow from 6.7% in 2023 to 5.4% in 2024, and 4.3% in 2025,” the economists said.
“Advanced economies are expected to return to inflation targets before emerging economies. However, while disinflation has progressed steadily, this was not without bumps in the road.”
The economists noted that disinflation had been helped by lower goods prices, while services inflation had remained stubborn in many countries.
“The IMF attributes the sticky services inflation to higher nominal wages relative to pre-pandemic trends, with wage negotiators still aiming for sizeable increases to counter the cost-of-living crises of the last few years,” the BER added.
“This signals that the path to target inflation may remain tricky, with country-specific sectoral dynamics likely to determine the pace of disinflation going forward.”
