World Bank lifts '23 global growth forecast, but outlook remains gloomy

The World Bank lifted its 2023 global growth forecast on Tuesday, citing greater-than-expected resilience of major economies including the U.S. and China at the end of 2022 and early in 2023, according to the bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report.
Specifically, global growth is forecast to climb 2.1% this year, as against the 1.7% projection in January this year. Nevertheless, the expected economic growth is still well below the 2022 growth rate of 3.1% amid elevated global interest rates, Mysteel Global learned from the report.

Notably, the World Bank raised its 2023 growth outlook on China from the earlier forecast of 5.1% to 5.6%, as the economic reopening drives consumer spending, particularly on domestic services, the reported noted. Meanwhile, the U.S. growth rate is set to grow 1.1% in 2023, up from the World Bank's January forecast of 0.5%.

However, the bank lowered its baseline forecast on global growth for 2024 to 2.4% from January's 2.7% projection, citing the lagged effects of monetary tightening and the slowdown in credit growth to the 0.3 percentage point downward revision.

The World Bank also warned that the global economy remains in a precarious state amid the protracted effects of the overlapping negative shocks of the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the sharp tightening of monetary policy to contain high inflation.

Written by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com
Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.