Fitch Ratings has raised its 2024 global GDP growth forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 2.4%.

In its latest Global Economic Outlook report, the rating agency said that the sharp upward revision was driven by the US growth forecast to 2.1% from 1.2% in the December 2023 report.

World growth is expected at 2.5%, which is stable from its earlier forecast, as the Eurozone recovers on a pick-up in real wages and consumption.

The revision to the US outweighs a marginal cut to the China 2024 growth forecast to 4.5% from 4.6%.

“We have revised up our growth forecast for emerging markets excluding China by 0.1 percentage point to 3.2%, raising forecasts for India, Russia, and Brazil.”
 
Fitch anticipates the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) will cut rates three times by 75 basis points by year-end.

“Both central banks want to see more evidence that recent disinflation progress is durable before starting out on the policy-easing process.”

However, the rating agency has pushed back the date of the first US Fed cut to July from its previous expectation of June.

“We have also pushed back the date of the first ECB cut from April to June,” the report added.
 

(Editing by Seban Scaria) seban.scaria@lseg.com