IMF revises up 2024 global growth forecast to 3.2 pct

ISTANBUL: The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday revised its global economic growth forecast for 2024 upwards to 3.2 per cent, 0.1 percentage point higher than an earlier estimate from January, Anadolu Agency reported.

Advanced economies are projected to expand 1.7 per cent this year, according to its World Economic Outlook April report.

The figure is a 0.2 percentage point upgrade from the January estimate of 1.5 per cent.

“The pace of expansion is low by historical standards, owing to both near-term factors, such as still-high borrowing costs and withdrawal of fiscal support, and longer-term effects from the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; weak growth in productivity; and increasing geoeconomic fragmentation,” said the report.

The latest forecast for global economic growth five years from now on is at 3.1 per cent – its lowest in decades, according to the financial agency.

The IMF warned that “geoeconomic fragmentation could intensify with higher barriers to the flow of goods, capital, and people implying a supply-side slowdown.”

Among advanced economies, the US economy is expected to grow 2.7 per cent in 2024, up 0.6 percentage points from 2.1 percent, according to the report.

The euro area’s growth forecast, however, was revised down to 0.8 per cent, from 0.9 per cent. — Bernama