According to the World Economic Outlook Update released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in January, global economic growth was estimated to be 2.9% in 2023 and to rise to 3.1% in 2024. The forecast for 2023 was 0.2% higher than the prediction in the World Economic Outlook released in October 2022, while it was below the historical (2000-2019) average of 3.8%.

The IMF pointed out that the rising interest rates to combat inflation and the war between Russia and Ukraine continued to weigh on economic activity. However, China’s recently eased epidemic controls were expected to boost the recovery.

The report predicted that global inflation will rise from 4.7% in 2021 to 8.8% in 2022 but drop to 6.5% in 2023 and 4.1% in 2024, but it will be still higher than the pre-epidemic level of 6.5% in 2017-2019.