The World Bank isn’t buying China’s stimulus talk

To anyone who hopes 2025 will be a less brutal year for China’s economy, the World Bank has some bad news for you.

The multilateral lender expects growth in Asia’s biggest economy to weaken even further next year, generating fresh headwinds for the wider region. This is despite Beijing’s recent moves to add stimulus to battle deflationary pressures and an at least initially enthusiastic global investor response.

“Recently signaled fiscal support may lift short-term growth, but longer-term growth will depend on deeper structural reforms,” the World Bank said on October 8. For three decades, it said, “China’s growth has spilled over beneficially to its neighbors, but the size of that impetus is now diminishing.”