For the third year in a row, global growth is expected to decelerate. In its forecasts published Tuesday, January 9, the World Bank expects an increase in global GDP of 2.4% in 2024, after 2.6% in 2023 and 3% in 2022, the lowest performance since the 2008 financial crisis. , excluding the Covid-19 pandemic.
Caught in the turbulence of rising prices and interest rates, the global economy is experiencing a “soft landing”according to the Washington-based institution, emphasizing that “the major economies emerged relatively unscathed from the rise in interest rates – the highest in the last forty years – escaping a sudden rise in unemployment or financial crashes”. “But it’s still too early to pop the champagne »warns Ayhan Kose, deputy chief economist of the World Bank, in particular because of interest rates, which are expected to remain high in 2024. “The impact of monetary tightening on growth is expected to peak this year in most major economies »warns the institution.
So far, the global economy has held up better than expected. Demand was maintained thanks to savings reserves accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic and activity was supported by massive aid plans, like the American Inflation Reduction Act program which provides at least 400 billion dollars (365 billion euros) in subsidies for technologies intended to promote the energy transition. Exceptional circumstances that will no longer happen in 2024.
Growth in advanced economies is therefore expected to slow to 1.2% in 2024, compared to 1.5% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2022, well below the annual average recorded between 2010 and 2019 (2%). Emerging countries are doing better (+3.9% expected in 2024, compared to +4% in 2023), even if they remain in a delicate situation, summarized as follows by the World Bank: “Weak demand for goods in advanced economies has weighed on their exports, while high interest rates have dampened their domestic demand. »
Lack of international cooperation
Growth in East Asian and Eastern European countries is expected to weaken, driven by the war in Ukraine and the slowdown in China. That of the countries of Africa and the Middle East should accelerate thanks to the rise in the prices of raw materials of which they are exporters, while that of the regions of South Asia and Latin America will remain stable.
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