NEW DELHI: Fitch Ratings has upwardly revised the global growth forecast for 2023 by 10 basis points to 2.5 per cent, reflecting surprising resilience so far this year in the US, Japan, and emerging markets excluding China.
The slump in China’s property market is casting a shadow over global growth prospects, just as monetary tightening increasingly weighs on the demand outlook in the US and Europe, says Fitch in its September 2023 GEO, released earlier this week.
Fitch has raised US growth by 0.8 per cent to 2.0 per cent, Japan by 0.7 pc to 2.0 pc and emerging markets excluding China by 0.5 pc to 3.4 pc.
However, the rating agency has lowered the world growth forecast for 2024 by 0.2 pc to 1.9 pc with widespread downward revisions.
The previously hoped-for stabilisation in China’s housing market has failed to materialise and new sales could fall by a fifth this year, it said “Housing is a third of investment and 12 per cent of Chinese GDP and has strong multiplier impacts on the wider economy.
Policy easing has been underwhelming to date and export demand is falling,” it said.