Macroeconomic Developments and Prospects in Low-Income Countries—2025

The 70 low-income countries (LICs) in the IMF’s membership experienced steady but modest growth in 2024, with marked divergence across countries. While 11 of the 20 fastest-growing countries in 2024 were LICs, many of the poorer and often also fragile and conflict-affected countries saw virtually no progress in per capita incomes over the past 15 years. Gradual fiscal consolidation proceeded in about half of the LICs, supporting further stabilization of public debt levels, but elevated debt service continues to constrain priority spending in many LICs. Growth is expected to accelerate over the medium term, while recent policy announcements on trade measures and official development aid will add to already elevated uncertainty and downside risks surrounding the outlook. Building resilience and reinvigorating inclusive growth are urgent. This agenda calls for further progress with implementing fiscal adjustments while minimizing the impact on growth, and more focus on measures to increase productivity. Enhancing spending efficiency and mobilizing domestic revenue will be critical, as well as improving economic institutions to support external capital inflows and domestic financial market development. Improvements to governance, education, and health, together with supporting physical capital formation and facilitating broader labor force participation, would help boost all factors of production and especially total factor productivity. On exchange rate regimes, there has been a clear trend among LICs to move away from market-determined exchange rates toward more tightly controlled arrangements, resulting in inconsistencies between de jure and de facto exchange rate arrangements. Overall, LICs progressed with developing FX markets, central banks play a lesser role in allocating foreign exchange, and greater reliance on FX auctions facilitates price discovery.