The global recovery continues but the momentum has weakened, hobbled by the pandemic. Fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, the recorded global COVID-19 death toll has risen close to 5 million and health risks abound, holding back a full return to normalcy. Pandemic outbreaks in...

The COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by -3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008-09...

Although recent vaccine approvals have raised hopes of a turnaround in the pandemic later this year, renewed waves and new variants of the virus pose concerns for the outlook. Amid exceptional uncertainty, the global economy is projected to grow 5.5% in 2021 and 4.2% in 2022

Global current account balances-the overall size of current account deficits and surpluses-continued to widen in 2021 to 3.5 percent of world GDP, and are expected to widen again this year. The IMF's multilateral approach suggests that global excess balances narrowed to 0.9 percent of world GDP...

The war in Ukraine has triggered a costly humanitarian crisis that demands a peaceful resolution. At the same time, economic damage from the conflict will contribute to a significant slowdown in global growth in 2022 and add to inflation. Fuel and food prices have increased rapidly, hitting...

The IMF's World Economic Outlook is packed with country specific facts, figures, and worldwide projections that present the outlook for growth, inflation, trade, and other economic developments in a clear, practical format. Leading international economists pull together the latest data on key...

The World Economic Outlook is the product of a unique international exercise in information gathering and analysis performed by IMF staff to guide key initiatives and to serve IMF member countries. Published at least twice a year in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, the World Economic...

The latest World Economic Outlook reports economic activity was surprisingly resilient through the global disinflation of 2022-23, despite significant central bank interest rate hikes to restore price stability. Risks to the global outlook are now broadly balanced compared with last year....

The January 2023 World Economic Outlook Update projects that global growth will fall to 2.9 percent in 2023 but rise to 3.1 percent in 2024. The 2023 forecast is 0.2 percentage point higher than predicted in the October 2022 World Economic Outlook but below the historical average. Rising...

The global economy is climbing out from the depths to which it had plummeted during the Great Lockdown in April. But with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to spread, many countries have slowed reopening and some are reinstating partial lockdowns to protect susceptible populations. While recovery...