The World Bank has revised its global growth forecast to 1.7% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2024 instead of 3% for both years in the previous version.
The current forecast of the world GDP for 2022 made by the World Bank was correct - 2.9%, however, a lot has had to be changed in the structure of this growth since June. Forecasts for 2022 of growth in the euro area, China and India turned out to be significantly overestimated, while growth forecasts for Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and especially Russia turned out to be underestimated.
Crises such as the current one are related to a greater extent to political actions than to economic decisions, and therefore their effects are calculated imprecisely and with large assumptions.
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EU GDP will grow by 0.6% in 2023 compared with the previous forecast of a contraction of 0.1%, Bloomberg reported, citing investment bank Goldman Sachs.
According to Goldman Sachs, the Euro area growth will be weak over the winter months of 2023 - GDP will grow by only 0.1%. After that, growth will accelerate to 0.6% by the end of 2023.
Let us remind that earlier the International Monetary Fund forecasted that in 2023 half of the EU countries could face a recession. On the eve of the new year, Financial Times analysts also wrote about the inevitability of a recession and mounting unemployment in the EU.
The key factor that has changed the expectations of economists from the Euro area was a sharp decline in gas prices due to abnormally warm weather (for example, in Berlin the temperature was +15 C° on New Year's Eve) and a reduction in its consumption. Another important factor has been the easing of coronavirus restrictions in China.