Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations predicted Tuesday that the global economy will expand in the next two years, spurred by stronger growth in the last six months and a modest recovery in trade and investment.
In a midyear update from its January forecast, the U.N. said the acceleration is underpinned by firm economic growth in many developed countries and strengthened prospects in countries in transition, with east and south Asia remaining the world’s most dynamic regions.
But the U.N. report said “the outlook for some developing regions has deteriorated since January” and “prospects for Africa, in particular, raise concerns.” It forecast negligible per capita growth in central, southern and west Africa as well as in South America in 2017-18.
Overall, the U.N. forecast global economic growth of 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent in 2018 compared with a revised figure of 2.3 percent in 2016.
“The report confirms that at the global level economic growth has strengthened in recent months in line with the forecasts presented in January,” Diana Alarcon, chief of the U.N.’s Global Economic Monitoring Unit, told a news conference launching the report.
Alarcon said economic prospects for some of the world’s poorest countries are especially worrying.
According to the report, average GDP growth projections for many of the 48 least developed countries have been revised downward to growth of just 4.7 percent in 2017 and 5.3 percent in 2018 – figures significantly below the U.N. target of at least 7 percent annually to eradicate extreme poverty everywhere by 2030.
As for the United States, the world’s largest economy, the U.N. forecast economic growth of 2.1 percent in both 2017 and 2018, compared with 1.6 percent in 2016. In China, the second-largest economy, the U.N. forecast 6.5 percent growth in both 2017 and 2018, compared with 6.7 percent in 2016.