The world’s economies are evolving at different speeds. Despite de-escalating trade tensions, elevated policy uncertainty, sluggish financial markets and inflation divergence, our global economic outlook has been upgraded by 0.1 percentage point to 3.0% for 2025 and 2.8% for 2026.
The upgrade reflects better-than-expected momentum in some advanced economies, China’s resumption of growth and its success in navigating hefty new U.S. tariffs, and a recovery in energy activity in oil exporters. Inflation remains a concern, however, as sluggish productivity gains and higher commodity prices push up core consumer price inflation worldwide.
GDP measures the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country or region in a given year. It includes all private and public expenditure on final consumption, investment and government purchases. Investment refers to the purchase of fixed assets such as factories, roads and buildings, and excludes purchases of intermediary goods such as raw materials and supplies, which are used up in the production process. Consumption includes the spending by households on final consumer goods and services, such as food, clothing, education and medical care. Government purchases include defense spending and social welfare programs.
Real GDP consists of the market value of all final goods and services, plus the gross domestic product (GDP) of all resident producers. This measure is calculated at purchaser’s prices, which equates to the sum of the market values of all final products minus the cost of any non-monetary exchanges or transactions.
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