In addition to Germany, Italy will probably also avoid a recession, the IMF said. Overall, Europe is proving to be "more resilient than expected" in view of the effects of the Ukraine war. In October, the financial institution had predicted that Germany and Italy would slide into recession in 2023.

Last October, the IMF predicted growth of 2.7 percent for the global economy as a whole. This forecast has now been raised to 2.9 percent. The reasons given by the experts included the lifting of the corona measures in China.