IMF sees slow, steady 2024 global growth; China, inflation pose risks

The IMF's forecast of China's 2024 growth remains unchanged - with growth to fall to 4.6 per cent from 5.2 per cent in 2023.

The global economy is set for another year of slow but steady growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday (Apr 16), with US strength pushing world output through headwinds from lingering high inflation, weak demand in China and Europe, and spillovers from two regional wars.

The IMF forecast global real GDP growth of 3.2 per cent for 2024 and 2025 - the same rate as in 2023. The 2024 forecast was revised upward by 0.1 percentage point from the previous World Economic Outlook estimate in January, largely due to a significant upward revision in the US outlook.

"We find that the global economy remains quite resilient," Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF's chief economist, told reporters, adding that many countries have defied gloomy predictions of recession as central banks hiked interest rates to fight inflation.

Many countries also are showing less "scarring" from the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crises, returning to pre-pandemic levels of output more quickly than previously predicted, the IMF said in its report.

Inflation is falling, but progress in bringing it back to central bank targets has slowed in recent months, Gourinchas said, noting that recent US data shows robust demand.