The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its latest World Economic Outlook report, which forecast the global economy to grow 3.6% and 3.7% for 2017 and 2018, respectively, raised by 0.1 percentage point from its forecasts made in April and July 2017.  Meanwhile, this report upwardly revised the forecasts of Macao SAR’s economic growth.

Based on its report, the IMF raised its forecast of Macao SAR’s economic growth for 2017 to 13.4% from 2.8% made in April.  Meanwhile, it also upwardly revised its forecast of the SAR’s economic growth for 2018 to 7.0% from 1.7%.  On the other hand, the international organisation forecast the SAR’s inflation this year to lower to 1.5% from 2.0%, and next year to stay at 2.2%.  It maintained its forecast of the unemployment rate to stay at a low level of around 2.0%.  On public finance, the IMF forecast the SAR Government’s integrated fiscal account to remain in surplus in this year and next.

Under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, the international organisation holds bilateral macroeconomic discussions with individual economies on a regular basis.  Since 2014, the IMF has conducted the Article IV Consultation with Macao SAR of the People’s Republic of China on a two-year cycle.  In addition, the IMF has also been regularly collecting the SAR’s economic and financial information for its overall assessment.  Since its World Economic Outlook in April 2016, the IMF has covered and published the forecasts of Macao SAR’s macroeconomic indicators.