The IMF has raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year by 0.2 percentage points to 2.9 percent, outpacing other regional countries including Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
The IMF’s April 2025 World Economic Outlook report, published yesterday, said that the imposition of sweeping tariffs by the US was "resetting the global trade system and giving rise to uncertainty" that is testing the resilience of the global economy.
Given that uncertainty, the IMF said it was estimating global economic growth of 2.8 percent this year and 3 percent next year, down 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points respectively from its last forecast in January.
Photo: Reuters
As for Taiwan, the report predicted that Taiwan’s economy would grow by 2.9 percent this year — a figure 0.2 percentage points higher than its previous forecast in October last year — and 2.5 percent next year.
Last year, Taiwan’s economy grew by 4.3 percent, the report said.
Meanwhile, the IMF predicted that Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation, would rise by 1.8 percent this year, well below the 4.3 percent forecast globally.
Taiwan’s CPI growth is to tick lower next year, to 1.6 percent, the report said.
In addition, the unemployment rate in Taiwan is expected to remain at 3.4 percent both this year and next, the IMF said.
Elsewhere in East Asia, the IMF forecast GDP growth of 0.6 percent in Japan this year, 4 percent in China, 1 percent in South Korea, 2 percent in Singapore and 1.5 percent in Hong Kong.
The US economy, the world’s largest, is expected to grow at a rate 1.8 percent this year (down from 2.8 percent last year), with inflation at 3 percent, the report said.
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