Scheduled to coincide with its regular annual meeting organized this year in Lima, Peru, the International Monetary Fund published the latest World Economic Outlook, a study on global growth prospects.

In comparison to estimates published in March 2015, the organization once again upwardly revised the economic growth forecast for 2015, raising it by 0.3 percentage points to 3.0 percent of GDP, while the former 2016 prognosis of 2.3 percent was modified to 2.5 percent.

One of the key general assumptions of the report, which also has special significance for Hungary, is that the global economy will presumably grow by 3.1 percent in 2015, 0.3 percentage points below the expansion of 2014, but also 0.2 percentage points below a former estimate. It is, however, an important characteristic that economic growth varies greatly between regions and groups of countries: while expansion in developed countries – among them in the Euro-zone – is picking slowly up, the markets of emerging and developing countries have already been displaying signs of a slow-down. The IMF is expecting a recovery in these regions only as of 2016.

As a whole, the aforementioned international economic environment is helping sustain the current economic growth rate in Hungary, which is favourable even from an international perspective.

In light of the latest IMF data, the Ministry for National Economy considers it especially noteworthy that the IMF forecast is mainly in line with -- and thus confirms -- the Government’s prognosis in terms of Hungary’s potential economic achievements this year and next.

The report is available at the below link:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/index.htm

(Ministry for National Economy)