Growth Continues, but the Room for Maneuver Is Narrowing

In June and July 2026, the World Bank, OECD, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank published new forecasts for the global and regional economy. The estimates for the global economy differ. The World Bank projects growth of 2.5% in 2026, the OECD — 2.8% in a scenario of a relatively rapid recovery in energy supplies, the IMF — 3.0%. The Asian Development Bank expects developing economies in Asia and the Pacific to grow by 4.9%.

At first glance, these figures describe an ordinary slowdown: the global economy continues to grow, and after the easing of the energy shock, growth rates may recover. However, the substance of the reports points to a deeper shift.

Economic growth is holding up in an environment where energy and financing are becoming more expensive, disinflation is stalling, private demand is weakening, debt burdens are rising, and outcomes are becoming more dependent on geopolitical events. At the same time, a new technological cycle is supporting a limited group of countries and industries linked to AI, semiconductors, computing infrastructure, and digital value chains.

Therefore, the main question of the period is no longer whether growth will continue. What matters more is this:

How much room remains for governments, businesses, and households to invest, adapt, and develop within this growth?

This is the first publication in TALAP’s cycle on the new model of the global economy. The following articles will examine the changing geography of investment, the industrial infrastructure of the energy transition, the impact of AI on employment and regions, and the state’s ability to bring these processes together into a single delivery system.

The forecasts of international organizations cannot simply be collapsed into a single average figure. They were published at different times, use different scenarios and assess the duration of energy and geopolitical disruptions differently.

Their divergences therefore have analytical value. They show the range of possible trajectories.

In its June Global Economic Prospects, the World Bank lowered its forecast for global economic growth to 2.5% in 2026, down from 2.9% in 2025. Forecasts were revised downward for two-thirds of economies. In 2027, growth may recover to 2.8%, but it will remain below the average level of the 2010s.

The World Bank’s baseline scenario assumes an average Brent price of around $94 per barrel in 2026, a rise in global inflation from 3.3% to 4.0%, and persistently elevated borrowing costs. Under a more severe combination of energy disruptions and financial stress, global growth could slow to 1.3%.

The most concerning part of the forecast relates to developing economies. Their growth may slow from 4.4% in 2025 to 3.6% in 2026. Outside China and India, income convergence between developing and advanced economies has virtually stalled: by 2028, nearly a decade will have passed without any narrowing of the per capita income gap.

In this picture, global growth continues, but its pace is becoming insufficient to accelerate productivity, incomes, and quality of life across much of the developing world.

OECD builds its forecast around two scenarios for the duration of disruptions in the Middle East.

In the scenario of a relatively rapid recovery in energy supplies, global growth slows to 2.8% in 2026 and returns to 3.1% in 2027. The OECD links the economy’s underlying resilience to investment in AI, technology manufacturing and trade, more favorable tariff conditions, as well as fiscal and financial support.

The prolonged scenario looks substantially more severe. If disruptions persist in 2027, global economic growth could slow to 2.1% in 2026 and 1.8% in 2027. The additional increase in inflation is estimated at 0.4 percentage points in 2026 and 1.3 points in 2027. Asia’s energy-dependent economies will bear the greatest losses, but the effects will spread through prices, supplies, financial conditions, and weaker confidence.

The OECD thus shows that the duration of the shock matters more than its initial scale. A short disruption can be partially offset by inventories, fiscal support, and supply reconfiguration. A prolonged shock changes investment plans, inflation expectations, the cost of capital, and consumer behavior.

The July World Economic Outlook Update presents a higher forecast: global growth of 3.0% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027.

The reason for the more resilient assessment lies in the action of two opposing forces. The military and energy shock worsens the position of energy importers and economies with limited reserves. At the same time, the investment upswing around AI supports countries integrated into the global technology chain.

The IMF notes a halt in global disinflation. This means that central banks have less room to cut rates quickly. Key risks remain a new escalation of the conflict and asset repricing in financial markets. The IMF identifies the priorities of economic policy as preserving price stability, rebuilding fiscal space, and enhancing economies’ ability to adapt to shocks.

This forecast adds an important distinction to the broader picture. Technology is currently supporting global growth, but the effect is concentrated. Countries with computing infrastructure, advanced components, capital, and skilled specialists are receiving an additional investment boost. Other economies are facing, to a greater extent, the consequences of expensive energy, high interest rates, and weak external demand.

The Asian Development Bank expects developing economies in Asia and the Pacific to grow by 4.9% in 2026. This is 0.2 percentage points below the April forecast and 0.6 points below actual growth in 2025. The 2027 forecast remains at 5.1%. Regional inflation has been revised up to 4.3% in 2026, compared with 3.0% a year earlier.

Asian growth remains significantly above the global average, but different trajectories lie behind the aggregate figure. Energy disruptions raise the cost of fuel, fertilizers, transport, and industrial production. Higher prices feed into inflation, weaken private consumption, and increase the cost of public and corporate financing.

For the Caucasus, Central Asia, and West Asia, ADB lowered its growth forecast to 3.8% in 2026 and 4.2% in 2027. The reasons cited include trade disruptions, rising transport costs, and prolonged geopolitical tensions.

All four forecasts describe a similar mechanism through which an external shock is transmitted:

disruption of energy supplies → rising prices for energy, transport, and fertilizers → higher production and food costs → accelerating inflation → sustained high interest rates → more expensive credit → weaker consumption and investment → slower economic growth.

Each successive stage narrows the room for maneuver.

Households direct a larger share of their income to current expenses. Companies postpone projects because of demand uncertainty and expensive financing. Central banks are more cautious in cutting rates. Governments spend more on subsidies, social support, debt servicing, and compensating for price shocks.

As a result, positive GDP growth may be accompanied by a decline in investment activity, real incomes, and fiscal flexibility.

This combination changes the meaning of macroeconomic resilience. In the past, the preservation of growth after an external shock was seen as confirmation of the economy’s strength. Now this indicator is no longer sufficient. It is more important to assess which sources are sustaining growth and what constraints are accumulating within it.

A comparison of the reports shows that external shocks are distributed unevenly across countries. At least three fault lines are emerging.

1. Energy exporters and importers

High prices increase export revenues for countries able to maintain physical export volumes. For importers, the same shock means a deterioration in the trade balance, higher inflation, and currency weakening.

The exporter’s advantage remains conditional. Higher prices generate revenue only if routes, production capacity, and market access are maintained. At the same time, imported equipment, transportation, insurance, and domestic production become more expensive.

Therefore, exporter status reduces some of the risks, but does not eliminate them.

2. Technology hubs and the rest of the economies

AI and related investments are supporting demand for semiconductors, data centers, cloud infrastructure, energy, and highly skilled labor. The IMF views this cycle as one of the factors offsetting the effects of the war on the global economy.

However, the technological impulse is much more narrowly distributed than the energy shock. Price increases affect almost all economies. The benefits of AI accrue primarily to countries and companies integrated into the relevant production and investment chains.

An asymmetry emerges: the negative consequences are global, while the compensating technological growth is concentrated.

3. Economies with reserves and countries with limited room for maneuver

High public debt reduces the ability to finance crisis-response measures while also investing in infrastructure, healthcare, education, and new industry.

The World Bank notes that total public debt in developing economies has risen from less than 40% of GDP in 2010 to more than 70%. The higher the initial debt burden, the faster the cost of additional borrowing increases.

A separate risk concerns commodity-based economies. About two-thirds of developing countries and almost 90% of low-income countries are commodity exporters. Their revenues are more volatile, and a positive price shock often expands spending faster than fiscal reserves. The World Bank recommends linking commodity revenues to fiscal rules, stabilization funds, the development of domestic budget revenues, and economic diversification.

Thus, the quality of accumulated institutions and reserves determines whether an external shock will be a temporary setback or the beginning of a more prolonged constraint on development.

Based on the existing forecasts, several constraints and decision points in Kazakhstan’s growth model can be identified.

ADB keeps its GDP growth forecast for Kazakhstan at 4.8% in 2026 and 4.5% in 2027. Inflation is expected to stand at 10.4% and 9.5%, respectively. The forecast implies a marked slowdown after 6.5% growth in 2025.

The economy continues to be supported by public investment and quasi-fiscal activity, while private demand is weakening and oil production is approaching the limit of current production capacity.

These indicators describe a resilient but more complex growth model.

High oil prices can increase export earnings and budget revenues. At the same time, physical export volumes, the reliability of the CPC and alternative routes, insurance costs, the OPEC+ framework and the state of refining also matter.

Domestically, the external energy shock is transmitted through prices for imports, transport, equipment, food, and services. Therefore, the positive effect on export revenues may be accompanied by additional inflationary pressure.

The central question is how well the oil windfall is used: whether it is spent on offsetting current expenditures or on building the infrastructure and productive capacity for the next cycle.

Public investment and quasi-fiscal programs make it possible to sustain construction, infrastructure, and business activity. This support is especially important amid weakening private consumption and external uncertainty.

At the same time, public-sector demand has its limits. Expanding projects increases budgetary commitments, import needs, and pressure on construction, energy, and transport capacities. If projects are not properly assessed, rising investment can lead to higher construction costs and competition for limited resources.

The key indicator becomes the private-sector effect of public investment: whether it creates conditions for new production facilities, suppliers, and private capital, or primarily supports current activity.

An inflation forecast above 10% in 2026 means that tight financial conditions will persist. Rapid monetary easing increases the risk of inflation becoming entrenched, while persistently high interest rates constrain investment and consumer demand.

A difficult balance emerges. The economy needs private capital for diversification, but the cost of capital remains high. Households need real incomes to recover, but stimulating demand may intensify price pressures.

Anti-inflation policy therefore goes beyond the interest rate. The path of tariffs, competition, logistics, imports, food supply chains, budget spending and the economy’s productive capacity all matter.

Overall GDP growth may be supported by the oil sector, construction, and government projects, while some small businesses, households, and regions are under pressure from high prices and borrowing costs.

Assessing resilience therefore requires a broader set of indicators: the share of private investment, productivity growth, real and median incomes, job quality, household and business debt burdens, the volume of non-resource exports, the regional distribution of new production facilities, and the ability of public projects to attract private capital.

This approach makes it possible to distinguish between overall output growth and the expansion of economic opportunities.

International forecasts do not point to an inevitable global recession. They highlight a different problem: growth is becoming more expensive, more selective and more dependent on economies’ ability to manage interconnected constraints.

The energy shock raises inflation. Inflation keeps interest rates high. High interest rates constrain private investment. Limited investment slows the renewal of infrastructure and productivity. The state tries to offset this gap while simultaneously facing budget constraints and a growing number of obligations.

For Kazakhstan, the key choice is between two trajectories.

1. The first trajectory sustains growth through oil revenues, public investment, and the expansion of current programs. It makes it possible to soften the short-term effects of external shocks, but gradually increases dependence on the budget, infrastructure constraints, and sensitivity to commodity market conditions.
2. The second trajectory uses current growth to build a broader productive base: private investment, processing, energy infrastructure, new export chains, technologies and regional employment centers.

The transition to the second trajectory depends not only on the amount of available funds. What matters is which countries and projects global capital chooses.

Global investment has begun to recover, but it is being allocated in an increasingly selective manner. It is concentrating around a limited number of economies, strategic sectors, and large infrastructure projects.

The next publication in the series is titled “Investment Is Back, but It Is Flowing to Only a Few.” It will examine the changing geography of international capital and the conditions under which Kazakhstan can turn incoming investment into technologies, capabilities and new production chains.

The article is based on four current macroeconomic forecasts published by the World Bank, the OECD, the IMF, and the ADB.

1. World Bank — Global Economic Prospects, June 2026

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/e96798d7-a81d-44ea-8287-1b4d6ea83f75

2. OECD — OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2026 Issue 1

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-outlook-volume-2026-issue-1_2d1956f0-en.html

3. IMF — World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026

https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/issues/2026/07/08/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2026

4. Asian Development Bank — Asian Development Outlook, July 2026: A Fragile Outlook as Energy Market Disruptions Persist

https://www.adb.org/publications/asian-development-outlook-july-2026

5. Asian Development Bank — Kazakhstan: Economy

https://www.adb.org/where-we-work/kazakhstan/economy

6. Asian Development Bank — Kazakhstan’s Growth to Moderate but Stay Resilient

https://www.adb.org/news/kazakhstan-growth-moderate-stay-resilient-adb-report