What will growth look like in the new economy? in World Economy News 23/04/2026 The world can change a lot in just three months. Back in January, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was cautiously optimistic about the state of the global economy when she spoke at Davos. Momentum was building. Now the IMF has confirmed that the context has deteriorated. The global growth forecast for the year has been revised down by 0.2 percentage points – from 3.3% in January, to 3.1% in the latest IMF World Economic Outlook, published to coincide with its annual Spring Meetings with the World Bank in Washington. This drop in projected growth “largely reflects the disruptions from the conflict in the Middle East”. Had the war not started in February, the IMF was on track to upgrade its growth projection for 2026 to 3.4%. But with the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint shut, the daily flow of oil has fallen by 13%, says the IMF, while Brent crude surged from $72 before hostilities started to a peak of $120 per barrel. Georgieva described the shock as “large, global, and asymmetric”. Even under the most optimistic scenario, she warned, there will be “no neat and clean return to the status quo ante”. Some estimates suggest that it might take up to 12 weeks to rebalance global tanker fleet and loading operations after reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with lasting damage to production capacity and molecules. In the meantime, a set of structural transformations – from AI adoption and geostrategic competition to record levels of debt and demographic and climate pressures – is reshaping the global economy. The World Economic Forum’s new report, Growth in the New Economy: Towards a Blueprint, argues that the strategies which generated returns in the old economy will no longer do so – and may actively erode the gains already made. “The current context demands bold choices and trade-offs,” says Attilio Di Battista, the Forum’s Head of Economic Growth and Transformation. “Investing in productivity, talent and reinforcing the fundamentals of economic policy are clear winning strategies that hold across every country and income level.” Building on two years of dialogues with nearly 200 global business leaders held as part of the Forum’s Future of Growth Initiative, policy-makers and experts, and a survey of more than 11,000 executives worldwide, the report outlines the frontier of the new economy as well as key trends, “no-regret” strategies and dilemmas shaping economic growth in the long-term. Bold choices and trade-offs’ So what should leaders actually do in the face of so much uncertainty? The report identifies “no-regret” moves and open dilemmas that will define four major areas of economic policy in the coming decade: Technology, productivity and human capital. Sustained growth in the new economy will depend on strengthening productivity and human capital as technology and knowledge become central to value creation. Governments and businesses must navigate between different approaches to translating innovation into new sources of growth and ensuring its benefits are widely shared, pursuing coordinated or competition-led approaches to harness technology and prioritize redistribution or mobility-based strategies for economic inclusion. Global cooperation and domestic capacity. Leveraging comparative advantage and diversification remain “no-regret” strategies that may enable expansion of economic opportunity and resilience. But gov