IMF World Forecast October 2022

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook on October 11, 2022. The report confirmed the global growth forecast for 2022 at 3.2%, but it slows further to a GDP rate of 2.7% in 2023, representing a downgrade of 0.2 percentage points over the estimates of July. The global economy continues to deal with several challenges, such as war-related energy and food crises, sharply rising interest rates, and the ongoing pandemic, which all weigh significantly on the outlook.

IMF lowered the 2022 GDP forecast of the United States by 0.7 percentage points, from 2.3% to 1.6%. Other advanced economies see their growth improve: IMF revised the estimates for Germany (from 1.2% to 1.5%), Italy (from 3 to 3.2%), Spain (from 4% to 4.3%), the United Kingdom (from 3.2% to 3.6%), Japan (stable at 1.7%), and Canada (from 3.4% to 3.3%).

The 2022 forecast downgrade also reflects revisions among a few large emerging markets. As a result of ongoing pandemic restrictions and a weakening property market, China's growth outlook for 2022 was also downgraded, from 3.3% to 3.2%. India’s forecast was cut by 0.6 percentage points to 6.8%. Meanwhile, for the largest five ASEAN economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), the growth is projected at 5.3% in 2022, in line with the previous projections.