International Monetary Fund improves its 2024 outlook for Kazakhstan

A recently published report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggested that Kazakhstan’s GDP may show a 4.9% increase in 2024. In January, IMF’s outlook for the next year was 4.4%.

Concerning the current year, IMF predicted the country’s GDP growth at the same rate of 4.3% in both January and April reports.

On the other hand, the April report forecasts an unemployment rate of 4.8% in 2023 and 2024. There was no such data in the January report by the IMF.

In 2022, the country’s government reported a 3.1% increase in GDP. In January 2023, Kazakhstan’s economy grew by 5.6%, including a 3.2% increase in the real economy and 2.4% growth in the service sector. Last year, Kazakhstan reported 20.3% inflation. Food prices surged by 25.3%, non-food by 19.4% and paid services by 14.1%.

The IMF also reported high inflation in Europe, which is driven by expectations of a price surge for commodity goods.

This year, inflation in developed European countries is expected to grow from 5.1% in 2022 to 5.6%. In developing European countries, the rate is going to reach 12.3% this year compared to 10.6% in 2022.

According to the IMF report, the Russian economy has proven to be more resilient to Western sanctions than many experts expected. After the sharp decline in Q2 2022, the country’s economy managed to rebound over the third and fourth quarters. As a result, a decline in output in Russia was 2.1% thanks to redirecting its oil and gas exports to countries that haven’t joined the international sanctions against the Kremlin.