Global Growth Remained Resilient Over 2025   

Quarterly GDP (real, seasonally adjusted), World and Country Aggregates, 2025Q4

Contributors: Richard Wild and Arushi Kapoor

Global growth remained resilient throughout 2025, with a quarter-on-quarter increase of 0.7 percent in 2025Q4—slightly below the 0.9 percent recorded in Q3. The average quarterly growth for the year matched the pre- and post-pandemic average of 0.8 percent.

Asia remained the most consistent contributor to global momentum in 2025. Growth held close to 1.2 percent in each quarter, staying above the world rate throughout the year. Other regions showed more variation and contributed more modestly, adding 0.1 percentage points to World growth. Growth in both the Americas and Europe in Q4 was subdued at 0.2 percent in Q4, indicating a sharp loss in momentum for the former and continued sluggishness in the latter. In contrast, Africa and Oceania grew relatively strongly in Q4, by 0.9 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.

     

Aggregate stability masked further softening of advanced economies (AEs) versus emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). EMDE growth was 1.1 percent in Q4, continuing to outpace growth in AEs—which decelerated to a modest 0.2 percent—and hence contributed to the bulk of World growth.

Economy-wide prices edged higher in 2025Q4. The world GDP deflator grew by 0.9 percent in 2025Q4, up from 0.7 percent in Q3 and a little above the post-pandemic average (0.7 percent). Prices grew by around 1 percent in all regions except Africa, where economy-wide prices softened to 0.4 percent following growth of close to 3 percent in each prior quarter of 2025.

Notes: 

1. Contributions to World growth may not equal the totals due to rounding.
2. Estimates for the USA up to 2025Q4 in this release use purely official data. In the previous release, estimates for 2025Q3 were imputed based on a mix of official historical data to 2025Q2 and WEO annual projections for 2025 as official 2025Q3 estimates were not published due to the government shutdown.
3. Based on 19 country members; excludes the European Union and African Union blocs.

World and country aggregate current price estimates reflect aggregate reported current price country data adjusting to international dollar purchasing power parity (PPP) terms which are then benchmarked up to the last full calendar year (2024) to annual nominal GDP World and country aggregate levels published in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) release (April 2026). World and country aggregate constant price estimates reflect weighted aggregates of reported constant price country data adjusted to PPP terms, from which growth rates are then benchmarked to the annual constant price World and country aggregate growth rates published in the latest WEO.

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