Udeshya Srivastava

Global growth is projected at 3.2 percent for 2019, improving to 3.5 percent in 2020 (0.1 percentage point lower for both years than in the April 2019 WEO forecast). On the trade front, the forecast reflects the May 2019 increase of US tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese exports from 10 percent to 25 percent, and retaliation by China. The downgrades to the growth forecast for China and emerging Asia are broadly consistent with the simulated impact of intensifying trade tensions and associated confidence effects discussed in Scenario Box 1 of the October 2018 WEO. The projected pickup in global growth in 2020 relies importantly on several factors: (1) financial market sentiment staying generally supportive; (2) continued fading of temporary drags, notably in the euro area; (3) stabilization in some stressed emerging market economies, such as Argentina and Turkey; and (4) avoiding even sharper collapses in others, such as Iran and Venezuela. About 70 percent of the increase in the global growth forecast for 2020 relative to 2019 is accounted for by projected stabilization or recovery in stressed economies. In turn, these factors rely on a conducive global policy backdrop that ensures the dovish tilt of central banks and the buildup of policy stimulus in China are not blunted by escalating trade tensions or a disorderly brexit.