IMF World Forecast April 2023

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its latest World Economic Outlook on April 11, 2023. The report forecasts global growth for 2023 at 2.8 per cent, a downward revision of 0.1 percentage point from January estimates, before rising further to 3 per cent in 2024. IMF raised inflation estimates for 2023 by 0.6 percentage points compared to January prediction, to 5.1 per cent.

IMF increased the 2023 GDP forecast of the United States by 0.2 percentage points, from 1.4% to 1.6%. Other advanced economies see their growth improve: IMF revised the estimates for Italy (from 0.6 to 0.7 per cent), Spain (from 1.1 to 1.5 per cent), United Kingdom (from -0.6 to -0.3 per cent), and France (stable at 0.7 percent). The economies that experienced a downtrend in the forecast are Germany by 0.2 percentage points to -0.1 per cent, and Japan with a downgrade of 0.5 percentage points, from 1.8 to 1.3 per cent.

The forecast for 2023 also has revisions among a few large emerging markets. The IMF confirms China's growth outlook for 2023 at 5.2 per cent, in line with the previous outlook. For the largest five ASEAN economies growth in 2023 is expected as follows: Vietnam (5.8 per cent), Indonesia (5 per cent), Malaysia (4.5 per cent), Thailand (3.4 per cent), and Singapore (1.5 per cent). India saw its GDP growth revised down by 0.2 percentage points to 5.9 per cent.