WASHINGTON (dpa): Global economic growth stabilised at a low level of 2.7 per cent last year and is expected to hold steady in 2025 and 2026, according t World Bank estimates released on Thursday night.
However, the World Bank warned that this is not sufficient to make up for the damage caused by recent economic shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic.
The low growth is particularly dangerous for the world's poorest countries, it said, estimating that 622 million people will be living in extreme poverty by 2030.
"Hunger and malnutrition will be the fate of about the same number of people," the Washington-based development bank said.
The World Bank added that the long-term growth prospects for low-income countries are the worst they have been since the beginning of the century.
Emerging markets and developing countries that were on track at the beginning of the century to close the income gap with the richest economies are now mainly falling further behind, it said.
The bank forecasts that developing countries, which account for 60 per cent of global growth, will end the first quarter of the 21st century with the weakest long-term growth prospects since 2000.
It also highlighted the weak growth rates in the eurozone, where the outlook predicts growth of 1 per cent for 2025, 0.4 percentage points lower than in last June's forecast.
The World Bank attributes this to weak consumption, low corporate investment and a weak industrial economy.
It also pointed to weak manufacturing and industrial production, particularly in Germany, which accounts for almost 30 per cent of the eurozone's gross domestic product. - dpa
