Macroeconomic outlook

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global economy remains on the growth trajectory forecast in April 2024. In the IMF’s July report, the growth rate forecast for the current financial year remained unchanged at 3.2 %. The breakdown of this growth, however, has been changed following opposing adjustments.

In the advanced economies, growth is likely to level off in the coming quarters. The IMF also anticipates that labour markets will cool and consumer spending will falter as monetary policy continues to tighten. In the eurozone, economic growth appears to have bottomed out. A slight economic upturn of 0.9 % is forecast for 2024. For Germany, however, the IMF does not expect any uptick in momentum and continues to forecast sluggish economic growth of 0.2 %.

World trade is expected to recover, even though cross-border trade restrictions have increased and are hampering trade between geopolitically highly disparate blocks. Although the upswing observed in the first quarter of 2024 is expected to slow during the course of the year, international trade is likely to fall in line with global economic growth again in the medium term.