IMF forecasts 2026 global GDP growth at 3.3%
The government has agreed to the need for a mini-budget if revenues fall short of expectations by end-December 2025, according to the IMF. Photo: file
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) again edged its 2026 global growth forecast higher on Monday as businesses and economies adapt to US tariffs that have eased in recent months and a continued AI investment boom that has fuelled asset wealth and expectations of productivity gains.
The IMF, in its World Economic Outlook, update forecast global GDP growth at 3.3% in 2026, up 0.2 percentage point from its last estimate in October. That's even with 3.3% growth in 2025, which will also beat the October estimate by 0.1 percentage point, the IMF said.
The global crisis lender forecast 2027 growth at 3.2%, unchanged from the previous forecast. It has revised global growth rates higher since last July in response to trade deals that have reduced President Donald Trump's tariff rates that peaked in April 2025.
"We find that global growth remains quite resilient," IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters, adding that the Fund's 2025 and 2026 growth forecasts now exceed predictions made in October 2024, before Trump was elected to a second term.
"So, in a sense, the global economy is shaking off the trade and tariff disruptions of 2025 and is coming out ahead of what we were expecting before it all started," Gourinchas said.
He said businesses have been able to adapt to higher US tariff rates by rerouting supply chains, while trade agreements have lowered some duties and China has shifted exports to non-US markets.
The IMF report lists AI as among risks that are tilted to the downside, along with disruptions to supply chains and markets from geopolitical tensions as well as new flare-ups in trade tensions.