The IMF confirms that Spain leads the economic growth of developed countries in 2024 and 2025

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirms that Spain leads the economic growth of developed countries in 2024 and 2025. The organization has updated its global economic forecasts this Friday and has raised the estimate of the advance of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by two tenths this year, at 2.3%, compared to October projections. In addition, he has announced that 2024 closed with 3.1%.

The IMF’s forecast for the group of advanced economies for last year is a growth in economic activity of 1.7%, a little more than half that of Spain, and even though the GDP of the United States increased by 2. 8%, according to the same report.

In 2025, the projection for the GDP of developed countries is 1.9%, also below that of Spain, which will only be surpassed by the world’s leading power, with a growth of 2.7%. And, finally, the multilateral organization expects inflation to moderate to normal levels, close to 2%.

“The world economy remains stable,” says the IMF. “Global growth of 3.3% is forecast in both 2025 and 2026, below the historical average (2000-19) of 3.7%,” the report continues.

“The forecast for 2025 remains practically unchanged compared to that of the October 2024 world economic outlook report, mainly due to an upward revision in the United States that offsets downward revisions in other large economies,” he explains. the IMF.

Among these “downward revisions” those of Germany and France stand out, with a cut in the GDP advance estimate of half a point for the first country in 2025, to 0.3%, and of three tenths for our neighbors, to 0.8%.

With Germany stagnant and France cornered by uncertainties, our country claims to be the driving force of the eurozone. In fact, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, highlights that the “improved outlook for Spain occurs in a context in which the IMF is revising downward the forecasts for our main European partners.”

Our country “consolidates itself as the developed country that grew the most last year, with growth higher than that of economies like the US or the main ones in the euro zone and being the only one whose growth exceeded 3%,” says Carlos Body.

“Spain will continue to be the largest economy that grows the most in the euro zone. In fact, Spain’s growth would have been almost four times higher than that of the euro zone in 2024 and will continue to lead in 2025 and 2026,” he concludes.

“Virtuous triangle”

This Thursday, along the same lines, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, defended the “virtuous triangle of productive transformation, opening to the outside world and fiscal consolidation of Spain”, in the closing speech of the ‘Spain Investors Day’ forum.

Pedro Sánchez celebrated Spain’s “180-degree turn” in economic matters in recent years, going from occupying a cover in ‘The Economist’ in 2012, which reflected “a country wounded” by the consequences of the financial crisis, to another now highlighting that it is “the best economy in the world in 2024.”