{
  "id": 14153192,
  "title": "World trade volume growth is projected to slow - IMF",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/13/world-trade-volume-growth-is-projected-to-slow-imf",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-13T07:56:45.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "3News",
    "slug": "3news",
    "url": "https://3news.com/news/world-trade-volume-growth-is-projected-to-slow-imf"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that global trade volume growth will decelerate in 2026, reaching 4.6 percent from 5.0 percent in 2025. This slowdown is due to the impact of tariffs and the adjustment of trade links and production chains. However, technology-related trade flows are expected to continue growing briskly. Despite global imbalances being projected to decline only slightly over the medium term, recent WEO forecasts for global current account balances have tended to be overly optimistic in recent years. In 2025, global current account balances rose to approximately 3.8 percent of world GDP, continuing a trend since the pandemic that reverses the decline following the financial crisis. Much of this growth was driven by China's expanding surplus, reaching about 0.6 percent of world GDP. Other Asian economies also saw larger surpluses, while the euro area's surplus decreased and oil exporters' surpluses declined. Meanwhile, the United States remains the world's largest deficit economy, with a current account deficit of about 1.0 percent of world GDP. Early 2026 trade data suggest that global imbalances may slightly worsen this year and remain high in 2027, with China and other Asian exporters maintaining their surpluses and the United States and the euro area experiencing weaker balances. Persistent domestic saving-investment imbalances in major economies continue to drive global imbalances. Expansionary fiscal policy in some countries with surpluses is expected to exacerbate the cyclical decline. However, the surge in technology-driven business investment, even as it moderates, is expected to attract capital to the United States and sustain large trade surpluses in several Asian economies. Increased productivity in the United States could boost the country's competitiveness in technology-related services and improve its trade balance. Nevertheless, stronger wealth effects may lead to higher domestic demand, complementing capital inflows driven by higher returns, and potentially keep the US current account deficit wider than in the decade leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. The substantial fiscal deficits in the United States and China, coupled with limited rebalancing to domestic consumption, contribute to the external imbalances that together account for about 40 percent of global current account balances.",
  "summary": "Global imbalances are projected to decline only modestly over the medium term.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}