IMF confirms 3.5% growth forecast for Argentina in 2026

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) remains bullish on Argentina, predicting that the economy will expand by 3.5 percent in 2026 and four percent in 2027.

The forecasts were included in the latest edition of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) report, which was unveiled at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.

The IMF had already revised down its forecast at the end of 2025 from the projection it had issued a year earlier, which had anticipated growth of 4.5 percent for 2026. It has now chosen to retain its estimate.

Argentina remains the IMF’s largest debtor, with the President Javier Milei’s government operating under the new US$20-billion EFF programme agreed in 2025.

The programme was designed both to refinance part of the country’s previous US$44.5-billion IMF arrangement, agreed in 2018, and to support Milei’s efforts to dismantle currency controls, rebuild Central Bank reserves and regain access to international capital markets.

The country is due to begin principal repayments in September from its 2018 arrangement.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva will visit Argentina at the end of July for talks, Economy Minister Luis Caputo confirmed Wednesday.

"I am pleased to announce that, later this month, we will welcome IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to Argentina. She will visit our country at the invitation of President Javier Milei," Caputo revealed in a social media post.

Caputo said the visit "comes in the context of the excellent relationship and constructive dialogue between this government and the Fund, within the framework of the successful economic programme currently under way, and will allow us to continue strengthening our joint work and the IMF's support for consolidating the progress achieved in terms of stability and economic growth."

Global outlook

Zooming out, the IMF on Wednesday slightly trimmed its 2026 global growth projection again, flagging "uncertainty and risks" to the economic outlook as fighting reignited in the Middle East.

Global economic growth is estimated at three percent this year, said the International Monetary Fund, down from 3.1 percent in its April forecast. The projection was made prior to midweek exchanges of fire between the United States and Iran.

"Developments overnight illustrate the uncertainty and risks that surround the outlook," said Petya Koeva Brooks, deputy director at the IMF's research department.

Her comments Wednesday came after US President Donald Trump declared Washington's ceasefire with Tehran over, before adding that US forces would strike Iran hard in the coming night.

It is the second time this year that the fund has lowered its overall growth expectations. The growth rate marks a cooling from 2025 as well.

Global inflation is anticipated to accelerate to 4.7 percent this year, higher than earlier projected. "The disinflationary trend that had been taking shape since early 2024 has stalled," Koeva Brooks stressed.

The IMF official said that "the global outlook is being shaped by two powerful forces pulling in opposite directions: the lingering effects of the energy crisis stemming from the war in the Middle East, and an investment boom driven by technological advances."

The Fund expects "a V-shaped recovery: weaker growth this year compared with our pre-war forecasts, followed by a rebound next year,” she added.

– TIMES/NA/AFP

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