Sweden: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission

Washington, DC – February 5, 2025: After contracting in 2023, economic activity started to recover in 2024, and growth is expected to pick up further in 2025. Inflation has been successfully brought under control. Uncertainty is high. Risks to growth are to the downside—including from geoeconomic fragmentation, trade uncertainty and escalating protectionism, and possible continued weakness in private consumption. Risks to inflation are two-sided. The shift to a more supportive macroeconomic policy mix, as planned, is appropriate given subdued levels of private domestic demand and a still-negative output gap. Monetary policy has eased to a neutral stance and should remain agile given high uncertainty. Fiscal policy is projected to be moderately expansionary. The authorities should be ready to deploy available policy space in case downside risks materialize. Under severe downside scenarios there is room for fiscal policy to provide support. Downside risks to financial stability have subsided somewhat, but structural vulnerabilities remain high. In this context, current macroprudential policy settings, including those for borrower-based measures, are appropriate. Reviving higher productivity growth will require further drawing on Sweden’s substantial strengths in innovation and pushing forward with a comprehensive structural reform agenda.

Belgium: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission

An IMF team led by Jean-François Dauphin visited Brussels to conduct the 2025 Article IV consultation with Belgium. The mission’s discussions (January 22-February 3) took place before the formation of the new government and the present statement, which summarizes the mission’s findings and recommendations, does not reflect the new government’s policy intentions.

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