IMF confirms slower growth of Bulgarian economy this year

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reaffirmed its estimates of slower growth of the Bulgarian economy in 2025. According to the financial institution's forecasts, Bulgaria's gross domestic product (GDP) will expand by 2.5% this year, after reporting an increase of 2.8 percent last year, according to BTA.

This means that the IMF actually maintains its expectations from October 2024 for the performance of the Bulgarian economy.

Regarding the country’s inflation, the IMF expects it to accelerate to 3.7% in 2025 after the 2.6% reported in 2024. Compared to the October report, the forecast goes up by 1.1 percentage points. On the other hand, unemployment will decrease slightly from 4.2% to 4.1% this year.

However, expectations for 2026 are more optimistic - real GDP growth will accelerate to 2.7%, inflation will slow to 2.3%, and unemployment will remain at 4.1 percent.

In their report, titled "Policy Uncertainty Tests Global Economic Sustainability," the experts focus primarily on the shift in international trade policy that began after the announcement of new, higher tariffs by US President Donald Trump and the events that followed.

The resulting epistemic uncertainty and policy unpredictability are major drivers of the economic outlook. If sustained, this sharp increase in tariffs and the associated uncertainty would significantly dampen global growth," states the IMF.

As a result, the institution is lowering its global economic growth forecast for this year from 3.3% to 2.8%. This change was also warned about by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, earlier this month. However, at the time, she stressed that there were no expectations for an upcoming recession.

For the eurozone, the downward revision of 0.2 percentage points implies 0.8% growth in the bloc's economy.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov