The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) now forecasts 4.3 percent year-on-year growth for China’s economy in 2026 – down 0.1 percent from its initial projection. It maintained its 4.7 percent prediction for 2025.
The Paris-headquartered world trade advocacy group noted in its latest Economic Outlook that the country’s exports would be reduced by newly imposed tariffs, mainly from the US though other markets including the European Union have also upped their duties on vehicles imported from China.
It also described domestic consumption as “being dampened by still high precautionary savings as a scarring effect of the pandemic, and the real estate correction” despite stimulus measures from the Central Government.
Beijing has stated that its growth target for the year is around 5 percent.
[See more: Macao’s government revises the 2025 budget amid a gambling revenue dip]
The OECD gave the US a steeper downgrade than China’s, predicting just 1.6 percent growth this year and 1.5 percent next year (down from 2.4 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively).
Its revised expansion forecast for the world economy came in at 2.9 percent for both 2025 and 2026, a drop from 3.3 percent. The slowdown would be concentrated in the US, China, Canada and Mexico, according to the Outlook. Of the G20, only India was forecast to see growth rates above 6 percent either this year or next year.
“Substantial increases in trade barriers, tighter financial conditions, weakened business and consumer confidence, and elevated policy uncertainty all pose significant risks to growth,” the Outlook noted.
In a press release, OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann said that the global economy had “shifted from a period of resilient growth and declining inflation to a more uncertain path.” He urged governments to “engage with each other to address any issues in the global trading system positively and constructively through dialogue.”
