IMF projects Pakistan economy to grow at 2.5pc in 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected Pakistan’s economy to grow at 2.5% in 2024, a private news channel reported World Economic Report.

In its World Economic Outlook report published on Tuesday, the global lender said that inflation in Pakistan will fall from 29.2% in 2023 to 23.6% in 2024.

The report also projected the unemployment rate in Pakistan to fall from 8.5% to 8% in the upcoming year. However, the current account deficit will rise from 0.7% to 1.8% in 2024.

Meanwhile, the IMF painted a bleak picture of the global economy but said that it was slowly recovering.

Global economic outlook

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday announced that it kept its GDP growth forecast for the global economy constant at 3% for 2023, but lowered its expectation for 2024 by 0.1 percentage points to 2.9%.

The institute’s growth expectation for the advanced countries were unchanged at 1.5% and 1.4% for 2023 and 2024, respectively, the IMF said in a report.

Emerging markets’ GDP growth is expected to be at 4% for both 2023 and 2024, while the fund’s previous forecast, in July, was at 4.1% for 2024.

The euro area is expected to grow 0.7% in 2023, down 0.2 percentage points, and 1.2% in 2024, down 0.3 points.

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Among major eurozone economies, Germany is expected to narrow 0.5% this year and grow 0.9% next year, while both expectations dropped.

The IMF’s forecasts for the US economy were 2.1% this year and 1.5% next year, both showed a rise from the previous report.

The Chinese economy is expected to grow 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024, while these figures were at 2.2% and 1.1% for Russia, respectively.

The IMF also lowered its forecast for world trade growth volume from 2% to 0.9% for this year and from 3.7% to 3.5% for the next year.