The World Bank lowered its global growth forecasts for 2025 to 2.3%, from 2.7% projected in January, which would be the weakest in 17 years, outside of the recessions in 2009 and 2020. For 2026, global growth is seen at 2.4%, also below 2.7% previous expected.
The bank said global growth is slowing due to a substantial rise in trade barriers and the pervasive effects of an uncertain global policy environment.
It also added that if trade disputes were resolved with agreements that halve tariffs relative to their levels in late May, 2025, global growth could be stronger by about 0.2 pp on average over the course of 2025 and 2026.
For the US, GDP growth for 2025 was revised lower to 1.4% from 2.3% seen in January. Forecasts for China were left unchanged at 4.5%. The Eurozone and Japan are forecast to both grow by 0.7%, a downgrade of 0.3 ppt and 0.5 ppt, respectively.
India GDP is expected to grow 6.3% (vs 6.7%) and Mexican growth was also revised sharply lower to 0.2% from 1.5%.
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