World Bank: The global economy expects to be not less than 3% this year

Baku. 14 January. The World Bank cut its outlook for global growth Tuesday, saying a strengthening U.S. economy and plummeting oil prices won’t be enough to offset deepening trouble in the eurozone and emerging markets, Report informs.

The Washington-based development institution expects the global economy to expand 3% this year, up from 2.6% in 2014, but still slower than its earlier 2015 forecast of 3.4%.

The bank’s economists see oil prices, which have lost more than half their value in the last six months, providing uneven benefits to major oil importers.

The tumble in oil has bolstered the U.S. recovery by giving consumers more money to spend, leading the bank to revise up its growth projection for the world’s largest economy by 0.2 percentage point to 3.2%. But the price plunge is failing to spur stronger growth in importers such as Europe and Japan, while also exacerbating financial problems in major oil exporters.

The eurozone is struggling to avert a third recession since the financial crisis as the currency union grapples with high debt and a lack of international competitiveness. The bank cut its outlook for growth in the region by 0.7 percentage point to 1.1% this year.

Growth in emerging markets, the leading drivers of the global recovery after the 2008 crisis, is slowing more than expected. Many of those economies, already straining their capacity to grow without major economic overhauls, are being hit by a raft of economic and political headwinds. The bank cut its forecast for all developing economies by more than half a percentage point to 4.8%.