IMF raises India's growth projections for 2024; fastest among developing nations

New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest outlook raised India's growth projections for 2024 from 6.5 per cent to 6.8 per cent, with the country maintaining the fastest-growing status in emerging markets and developing economies.

For the year 2025, the IMF maintained India's growth rate at 6.5 per cent. It attributed robustness and strength in domestic demand and a rising working-age population behind its growth projections.

Countries with a current demographic dividend could help support growth in the global workforce, in which nearly two in every three new entrants over the medium term will come from India and sub-Saharan Africa, IMF noted in its latest World Economic Outlook report.

Economic growth in the 10 emerging markets of the Group of Twenty (G20) has consistently outperformed that of advanced economies over the past two decades.

As their share of world GDP has more than doubled since 2000, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkiye (henceforth G20 emerging markets) have continued to integrate into the global economy--notably through trade and global value chains.

According to India's official data, it grew at a massive 8.4 per cent during the October-December quarter of the financial year 2023-24 and the country continued to remain the fastest-growing major economy. The Indian economy grew 7.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent during the preceding two quarters - April-June and July-September.

India's economy grew 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 and 8.7 per cent in 2021-22, respectively.

Overall, the IMF pegged global growth at 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

It noted that the global economy remains remarkably resilient, with growth holding steady as inflation returns to target.

"The journey has been eventful, starting with supply-chain disruptions in the aftermath of the pandemic, a Russian-initiated war on Ukraine that triggered a global energy and food crisis, and a considerable surge in inflation, followed by a globally synchronized monetary policy tightening."

Despite many gloomy predictions, the world avoided a recession, the banking system proved largely resilient, and major emerging market economies did not suffer sudden stops, the IMF said.

On a year-over-year basis, global growth bottomed out at the end of 2022, at 2.3 percent.