India stays world's fastest growing economy at over 6 pc growth as IMF slashes forecast for 127 countries

New Delhi, April 22 India continues to remain the world’s fastest-growing major economy and the only country expected to clock over 6 per cent growth in the next two years, according to an IMF report released on Tuesday, which has trimmed the growth forecast for over 120 countries.

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said, “Our April 2025 World Economic Outlook projects significantly weaker global growth at 2.8 per cent for 2025 with growth downgrades for 127 countries making up 86 per cent of world GDP.”

“The path forward requires clarity and predictability on trade policies. Countries should address structural challenges to rebuild resilience and restore growth momentum,” Gopinath added in a post on X.

The outlook report pegs the Indian economy to grow at 6.2 per cent in 2025 and 6.3 per cent in 2026, which is over 2 percentage points above second-ranked China’s economic growth forecast at 4 per cent for 2025 and 4.6 per cent in 2026.

The US, which has triggered the tariff turmoil across the globe, is expected to see its GDP growth slow to 1.8 per cent this year, which is expected to decline further to 1.7 per cent in 2026, according to the IMF report.

Similarly, the Euro Area is forecast to slow to a mere 0.8 per cent growth rate in 2025 before it makes a mild recovery at 1.2 per cent in 2026. Germany is expected to be the hardest hit with zero growth in 2025, followed by 0.9 per cent in 2026, while France is predicted to post a 0.6 per cent and 1 per cent growth for the two years, respectively. Spain is expected to do better than the other in 2025 as the only European country to clock a 2.5 per cent growth rate. However, it is expected to slow down to 1.8 per cent in 2026. The UK is expected to post a 1.1 and 1.4 per cent growth respectively for the two years.

Japan is also expected to be hard hit by the global trade war, with its growth stagnating at 0.6 per cent for both years.

The IMF released the April 2025 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report in Washington on Tuesday.

The report said that shortly after the January 2025 WEO Update, the US announced multiple waves of tariffs on major trading partners and critical sectors.

“For this reason, we expect that the sharp increase on April 2 in both tariffs and uncertainty will lead to a significant slowdown in global growth in the near term,” the report said, while projecting global growth to drop to 2.8 per cent in 2025 and 3 per cent in 2026 -- down from 3.3 per cent for both years in its January update.

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