The International Monetary Fund (IMF) retained its growth projection for India at 6.5 per cent for FY26 and FY27, holding that it is “in line with potential.”
In the update to its World Economic Outlook, the IMF said: “The growth in India had slowed more than expected, led by a sharper-than-expected deceleration in industrial activity.”
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It referred to the surprise 5.4 per cent growth in September quarter.
The IMF has projected the global growth to remain steady at 3.3 per cent in 2025 and 2026, broadly aligned with potential growth that has substantially weakened since the pandemic.
“The forecast for 2025 is broadly unchanged from that in the October 2024 World Economic Outlook (WEO), primarily on account of an upward revision in the United States offsetting downward revisions in other major economies,” said the IMF.
Further, the growth projection for China in calendar year 2025 has been revised upwards by 0.1 percentage point to 4.6 per cent.
“This revision reflects carryover from 2024 and the fiscal package announced in November largely offsetting the negative effect on investment from heightened trade policy uncertainty and property market,” the IMF report said.
Recently, the World Bank has kept its growth projection for India unchanged at 6.7 per cent for FY26 and FY27, maintaining that the country will remain the fastest growing major economy for next two years.
The IMF’s growth forecast is lower than that of the World Bank.
The First Advance Estimates of the National Statistics Office (NSO) have estimated the FY25 growth to slow to a four-year low of 6.4 per cent, lower than Reserve Bank of India’s projection of 6.6 per cent growth in the current fiscal.
