It cools its growth forecasts for the euro zone to 0.7% in 2024 and 1.6% in 2025
MADRID, 9 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The global economy faces what may be the five-year period with the lowest growth in the last 30 years, according to the World Bank in its new macroeconomic projections report, which describes the current decade as one of “wasted opportunities.” .
While acknowledging that the global economy is in a better position than a year ago, as the risk of global recession has decreased, the World Bank warns that rising geopolitical tensions could create new near-term dangers for the global economy.
At the same time, it recalls that the medium-term prospects for many developing economies have darkened amid slowing growth in most major economies, sluggish global trade and the most restrictive financial conditions in recent decades.
On the other hand, it predicts that in 2024 global trade growth will be only half the average recorded in the decade before the pandemic, while borrowing costs for developing economies, especially the most indebted, are likely to remain high, as global interest rates stagnated at four-decade highs in inflation-adjusted terms.
“Without a major course correction, the 2020s will go down in history as a decade of wasted opportunities,” said Indermit Gill, chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank Group.
Specifically, the latest forecasts of the multilateral institution contemplate a slowdown in global growth to 2.4% this year, from 2.6% in 2023, the third consecutive annual slowdown and in line with what was forecast in June, while for 2025 worsens its forecast by three tenths, to 2.7%.
In the case of advanced economies, the forecast points to an expansion of 1.2% this year and 1.6% next year, maintaining the projection for 2024, but worsening that of 2025 by six tenths.
In this sense, after growing 2.5% in 2023, the World Bank predicts that the United States will slow its expansion to 1.6% this year and 1.7% the next, which represents an improvement of eight tenths of the previous forecast for 2024, but a reduction of six for next year.
The euro zone, which in 2023 would have grown by 0.4%, once again comes out worse than its transatlantic partner, with an expected expansion this year of 0.7%, instead of the 1.3% previously anticipated, which in 2025 It will be 1.6%, seven tenths less.
Regarding emerging economies, the World Bank forecasts growth of 3.9% in 2024 and 4% in 2025, in line with previous projections, with an expansion of 6.4% and 6.5%, respectively. of India.
China, the second largest economy in the world, would grow 4.5% this year, compared to 5.2% in 2023, while in 2025 the expansion will slow down to 4.3%, in both years one tenth below expected previously.
For its part, Russia, which would have grown 2.6% last year, will grow again more than expected in 2024, with 1.3%, as well as a year later, with 0.9%, in both cases a tenth more than projected last June.
“Short-term growth will remain weak and will lead many developing countries, especially the poorest, into a trap: with crippling levels of debt and precarious access to food for almost one in three people. This will hinder progress on many global priorities,” warns the World Bank’s chief economist.
