Economic outlook

The general global growth forecasts brightened somewhat toward the turn of the year 2022/23. In its economic forecast from January 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects global economic growth of 2.9 % in 2023. We expect to see moderate growth in our core markets for full-year 2023. In the United States, the extensive tightening of monetary policy is expected to put pressure on economic development in the first half of 2023, but also to significantly slow down the upward trend in consumer prices. In Europe, energy prices are expected to fall only slowly over the year ahead, which will further increase production costs with a likely gradual knock-on effect on consumer prices. A fall in demand will also ease supply-side shortages, which will remain at a high level. In 2024, the economy is expected to slowly return to normal.

The following table shows the expected GDP growth rate trends and the change in harmonized consumer prices in our most important markets for 2023 and 2024.