World Bank Expects 'Weaker' Global Growth In 2020

The World Bank downgraded its global growth forecasts for 2019, 2020, and 2021, due to slow recovery in trade and investment, according to Reuters.

What Happened

The World Bank on Wednesday released its latest Global Economic Prospects report, where the bank trimmed its expectation for global economic growth by 0.2 percentage points for 2019, 2020, and 2021.

At an estimated 2.4%, the year 2019 marked the slowest growth pace since the global financial crisis in 2008. Growth, however, will accelerate marginally to 2.5% in 2020, estimates the World Bank report.
“This modest increase in global growth marks the end of the slowdown that started in 2018 and took a heavy toll on global activity, trade, and investment, especially last year,” said the World Bank’s lead economic forecaster, Ayhan Kose.

The marginal improvement in 2020, however, remains vulnerable to certain risks, including the “possibility of a re-escalation of global trade tensions, sharp downturns in major economies, and financial disruptions,” said the report.

“We do expect an improvement, but overall, we also see a weaker growth outlook,” Kose added.

US Growth Expectations

The U.S. growth could slow down from 2.3% in 2019 to 1.8% in 2020 and then could slow further to 1.7% in both 2021 and 2022, reported the New York Times, citing the World Bank report.