Company: MT
Filing Date: 2025-03-10
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001243429-25-000017
Chunk: 170

Company: ArcelorMittal
Filing Date: 2025-03-10
Form: 20-F
Chunk 170
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 mainly due to elevated services inflation. Global disinflation was also supported by easing in labor market tightness during post- pandemic recovery, which contained pressure from wage inflation. The return of inflation to near central bank targets could pave the way for easing monetary policy as a result. Since June 2024, major central banks in advanced economies have started to cut their policy rates, moving their policy stance toward neutral. Overall, despite a sharp and synchronized tightening of monetary policy around the world, the global economy has remained resilient to elevated interest rates throughout the disinflationary process, avoiding a global recession in 2024. While specific pockets of weakness remain, such as the industrial recession in developed economies and real estate downturn in China, other offsetting factors, including the relative strength of services and additional fiscal stimulus from the Chinese government, have helped keep economic growth relatively steady. As a result, global GDP growth only slowed marginally to 2.7% in 2024. After slowing to 2.5% in 2022 following the post COVID-19 rebound in 2021, U.S. GDP growth picked up to 2.9% in 2023, despite higher interest rates and inflation. Overall, cautiously loosening fiscal policy coupled with resilient consumption and investment contributed to GDP growth remaining steady at approximately 2.8% in 2024. With the new U.S. administration, downside risk to growth in 2025 centers around policy uncertainty, in particular rising trade tensions with trading partners, as higher tariffs potentially add to domestic inflationary pressure, becoming a drag on GDP growth. After EU27 GDP growth slowed to 3.5% in 2022 due to a sharp spike in energy prices, especially gas, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, GDP growth slowed to only 0.5% year-on- year in 2023, as the economy weakened in early 2023 , and inflation rose far above target levels (resulting in increased interest rates) . In 2024, economic activity, though no longer weakening, stagnated at low levels due to the lagged impact of high interest rates. The weakness of the industrial sector led to EU27 GDP growth only increasing to an estimated 0.9% year- on-year in 2024. Weaker growth led to inflation moderating and allowed the ECB to start cutting interest rates in June 2024. China’s economy has remained resilient despite the ongoing property sector downturn since 2022. GDP growth of 5.2% in