Global Barometers rise in July

For the second consecutive month, the Coincident and Leading Barometers rise in July. However, they have not yet recovered the losses incurred between March and May. Despite these increases, the indicators continue to suggest that the global economic growth rate will remain modest in 2025.

10.07.2025

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In July, the Global Economic Coincident Barometer rises by 1.5 points to 95.4 points, and the Leading Barometer increases by 1.0 point to 97.4 points. The results are mainly driven by the Asia, Pacific & Africa region.

“Although geopolitical risks and the resulting economic uncertainty have not disappeared, the Global Barometers suggest a slight improvement towards long-term averages. However, new information reflecting divergent monetary policies among major central banks, ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the vulnerability of global growth to trade shocks indicates that, while major economies are avoiding recession, growth remains fragile. Elevated policy uncertainty, persistent inflationary pressures in certain regions and geopolitical tensions combine to create a challenging environment for stable economic growth” comments KOF Director Jan-Egbert Sturm the latest results.

“Elevated policy uncertainty, persistent inflationary pressures in certain regions and geopolitical tensions combine to create a challenging environment for stable economic growth.”

Jan-Egbert Sturm, KOF Director

Coincident Barometer – regions and sectors

The 1.5-point increase in the Coincident Barometer in July results from positive contributions of 0.9 and 0.5 points from the Asia, Pacific & Africa and Western Hemisphere regions, respectively. The Europe indicator contributes modestly with 0.1 points to the aggregated result. Despite the second consecutive increase, the Western Hemisphere indicator continues to show the lowest level among the regional coincident indicators.

All five coincident sectoral indicators rise in July, with Services ending a sequence of five consecutive declines and Trade, along with Construction, recording levels above the 100-point mark.

Leading Barometer – regions and sectors

In July, the 1.0-point increase in the Global Leading Barometer results from a positive contribution of 1.0 point from the Asia, Pacific & Africa region, while the Western Hemisphere decreases moderately by 0.1 point and Europe remains unchanged. All three regions show moderate growth for the coming months. The Leading Global Barometer leads the world economic growth rate cycle by three to six months on average.

Among the leading sectoral indicators, only Construction does not rise in the month, recording its third consecutive decrease. Despite this, it continues to show the highest level among the sectors. All leading sectoral indicators remain below the neutral 100-point level.

The Global Economic Barometers

The Global Economic Barometers are a system of indicators enabling timely analysis of global economic development. They represent a collaboration between the KOF Swiss Economic Institute of the ETH Zurich in Switzerland and Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The system consists of two composite indicators, the Coincident Barometer and the Leading Barometer. The Coincident Barometer reflects the current state of economic activity, while the Leading Barometer provides a cyclical signal roughly six months ahead of current economic developments.

The two Barometers comprise the results of economic tendency surveys conducted in more than 50 countries with the aim of achieving the broadest possible global coverage. The advantages of economic tendency surveys are that their results are usually readily available and are not substantially revised after first publication.

The Coincident Barometer includes more than 1,000 different time series, while the Leading Barometer consists of over 600 time series. Cross-correlation analysis is used to decide which individual time series are included in the barometers. This involves correlating the individual time series with a reference series. The reference series used is the year-on-year growth rate of global gross domestic product (GDP). The reference series covers 10 years of data. A COVID period has been defined using a global stringency indicator, and a data window from January 2020 to March 2023 has been excluded from the reference series. A time series is only included in a Barometer if it shows a sufficiently high correlation and a suitable synchronization or lead with the reference series.

The series of the two Barometers are revised each month at publication and are standardized to have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10 for the 10-year period previous to the most recent observations.

The Global Barometers methodology is described in Klaus Abberger, Michael Graff, Aloisio Jr. Campelo, Anna Carolina Lemos Gouveia, Oliver Müller and Jan-Egbert Sturm (2020), The Global Economic Barometers: Composite indicators for the world economy. KOF Working Papers, vol. 471, Zurich: KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, 2020.