The IMF has raised its global economic growth forecast to 3.3%, with upward adjustments for both the Chinese and American economies

On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released an updated version of the World Economic Outlook report, raising its global growth forecast for 2025 to 3.3%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the prediction made in October last year. The IMF's global growth forecast for 2026 remains unchanged at 3.3%.

The latest adjustment by the IMF is primarily attributed to stronger-than-expected demand in the United States and a slowdown in global inflation. The cooling of inflation allows central banks in various countries to continue cutting interest rates.

The United States is the country among major global economies that received the largest upward adjustment, with the IMF raising its GDP forecast for the U.S. by 0.5 percentage points to 2.7%.

However, the upward adjustment for the U.S. economy is largely offset by downward expectations in many other regions globally.

The IMF forecasts economic growth in the Eurozone to be 1% in 2025. The IMF maintains its economic growth expectation for emerging market economies in 2025 at 4.2%.

According to CCTV News, the IMF has recently raised its economic growth expectation for China in 2025 to 4.6%, which is 0.1 percentage points higher than the prediction made in October last year.

The IMF expects that the risks to the global economic growth outlook remain tilted to the downside, with a forecast of about 3% for the next five years, and uncertainties related to the economic plans of U.S. President-elect Trump could impact economic growth.

Regarding inflation, the IMF report forecasts global inflation to be 4.2% and 3.5% for 2025 and 2026, respectively.

High Uncertainty of Trump’s Policies

As the IMF's latest report is released just days before Trump's inauguration, the report does not include the anticipated economic plans regarding trade, taxes, immigration, and regulation. Although the IMF states that most policies may have a positive impact on U.S. and global growth in the short term, they also bring some medium-term risks and high uncertainty.

The IMF outlined the following points:

• Extending the tax cuts that are set to expire this year from Trump's previous term could boost output and may bring some "positive spillover effects" globally. However, in the long run, this may require larger-scale fiscal tightening, which could potentially have destructive effects.
• Deregulation could enhance business confidence and encourage investment, promoting economic growth. However, "excessive rollback" of regulations that can limit risk-taking and excessive borrowing may fuel the dynamics of economic booms and busts.
• Restrictions on immigration could permanently reduce potential output and raise inflation in the U.S. labor market.
• As for Trump's threats to impose tariffs on multiple countries and regions, the impact of this measure could be more severe than during his first term, with global inflation expectations rising, and many economies now experiencing faster inflation transmission than in 2016.

IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas stated that all of the above factors may mean that the Federal Reserve may not be able to cut interest rates as quickly as previously expected, and may even have to raise rates. A stronger dollar could also increase inflationary pressures in other regions, particularly in emerging markets Gourinchas stated in a blog post:

Several major economies are holding elections in 2024, leading to increased uncertainty in economic policies. He believes that it is urgent for some countries to restore fiscal sustainability.

Gourinchas called for governments to invest more effort in strengthening and improving the effectiveness of multilateral institutions to promote a more resilient and sustainable global economy. He specifically pointed out that unilateral policies that distort competition, such as increased tariffs and non-tariff barriers, are unlikely to sustainably improve a country's economic outlook and will leave all parties in a worse situation