Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and president of Vietnam, boarded a high-speed railway train to visit Xiong'an New Area in north China's Hebei Province on Tuesday.

At the invitation of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, To Lam arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a state visit to China through Friday.

China is the first country To Lam visits following his recent election as Vietnamese president.

Upon his arrival, To Lam took "Fuxing" bullet train, China's self-developed locomotives with a maximum speed of 350 km/h, to travel to Xiong'an New Area.

During the trip, he stressed that the two parties and the two countries should strengthen strategic alignment and seek shared development.

China announced plans to establish the Xiong'an New Area in April 2017. This new area is designed to relieve Beijing of functions non-essential to its role as China's capital and advance the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

Vietnam's top leader To Lam aboard high-speed train for Xiong'an New Area visit

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its global economic growth forecasts for 2026 to 3.1 percent in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report published on Tuesday, while keeping its projection for 2027 at 3.2 percent.

This marks a deceleration from the estimated 3.4 percent growth achieved in 2025. Before the outbreak of the Middle East conflict, the bottom-up forecasts for global growth would have been 3.4 percent in 2026 and 3.2 percent in 2027.

The forecast incorporates the impact of the war and assumes that it will be limited in duration, intensity and scope, with disruptions fading by mid-2026.

Under the reference forecast, global headline inflation is expected to increase to 4.4 percent in 2026 and decline to 3.7 percent in 2027.

If the conflict and the ensuing spike in oil prices last longer, global economic growth in 2026 will fall to 2.5 percent, while global inflation will climb to 5.4 percent, according to the report.

In extreme cases, global economic growth in 2026 could drop to two percent, the report warned.

To be specific, the U.S. economy is projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2026 and 2.1 percent in 2027, although higher trade barriers introduced since April 2025 are expected to continue to weigh on activity.

In the euro area, growth is projected to decline from 1.4 percent in 2025 to 1.1 percent in 2026 before edging up to 1.2 percent in 2027. The forecasts for 2026 and 2027 are each 0.2 percentage point lower than those compared in the January 2026 WEO Update.

The 2026 growth forecast for emerging market and developing economies is revised down by 0.3 percentage point, to 3.9 percent, while the outlook for advanced economies remains broadly unchanged. With risks still tilted to the downside since the January 2026 WEO Update, the IMF suggested a comprehensive policy package combining domestic measures with coordinated international actions to strengthen resilience and foster adaptability.

It also stated in the report that "trade restrictions play a limited role in correcting imbalances but can worsen output," and urged countries to cooperate and take coordinated actions to restore stability to international economic relations.

IMF lowers global growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1 pct