Taipei: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has increased Taiwan’s 2025 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast by 0.2 percentage points to 2.9 percent, surpassing other regional countries including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.

According to Focus Taiwan, the IMF’s April 2025 World Economic Outlook report, published on Tuesday, highlighted that the imposition of sweeping tariffs by the United States is “resetting the global trade system and giving rise to uncertainty” that is challenging the resilience of the global economy. Amid this uncertainty, the IMF estimated global economic growth of 2.8 percent in 2025 and 3.0 percent in 2026, which are reductions of 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively, from its previous forecast in January.

For Taiwan, the report projected that the economy would grow by 2.9 percent in 2025, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from its last forecast in October of the previous year, and 2.5 percent in 2026. In 2024, Taiwan’s economy grew by 4.3 percent, as noted in the report.

Additionally, the IMF predicted Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation, will rise by 1.8 percent in 2025, which is significantly lower than the global forecast of 4.3 percent. Taiwan’s CPI growth is expected to decrease slightly to 1.6 percent in 2026.

Furthermore, the unemployment rate in Taiwan is expected to remain steady at 3.4 percent in both 2025 and 2026, according to the IMF.

In other parts of East Asia, the IMF forecasted 2025 GDP growth rates of 0.6 percent in Japan, 4.0 percent in China, 1.0 percent in South Korea, 2.0 percent in Singapore, and 1.5 percent in Hong Kong. The report also projected 2025 CPI growth of 2.4 percent in Japan, 0.0 percent in China, 1.8 percent in South Korea, 1.3 percent in Singapore, and 1.9 percent in Hong Kong.

The report indicated that the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, is expected to grow at a rate of 1.8 percent in 2025, down from 2.8 percent in 2024, with inflation at 3.0 percent.