According to the United Nations, global economic growth will slow to 2.4 per cent in 2024.
The prediction was made in the United Nations’ flagship report, ‘World Economic Situation and Prospects 2024,’ released on Thursday in New York.
According to the report, global economic growth will fall from 2.7 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent this year, well below the pre-pandemic growth rate of 3 per cent.
Hantanu Mukherjee, director of the UN Department of Economic and Social Welfare’s (DESA) economic analysis and policy division, said at the report’s launch that the world is struggling to return to the 3.0 per cent annual average from 2019, “representing years of subpar growth.”
Mukherjee said:
“Overall, developing economies’ growth remains pretty static at about 4 per cent over 2020 to [20]25. A little higher for LDCs but still well below the SDG target of at least 7 per cent.”
Mukherjee said in 2024, inflation will average 3.9 per cent globally — a decline of about a third from last year.
“And that is a rapid change, back in 2022, we were seeing 8.1 per cent.”
“And about a quarter of all developing countries, the annual inflation forecast 2024 is over 10 per cent.
“That will be eroding what people’s earnings can buy and inflicting further pain, especially on the middle class, people in poverty and hunger will continue to be a special concern, because local food price inflation remains high in many developing countries, and this is a situation which could easily be aggravated by shocks to domestic food production or even to the global food supply.”
According to Mukherjee, fiscal space remains limited in most countries, “but can be particularly constraining for developing countries.”
According to the economist, over 50 developing economies spent more than 10% of their revenue on interest, with 25 spending up to 20%.
“That restricted their capacity to respond to shocks or to provide essential services, like education and healthcare,” he said.
Hamid Rashid, chief of the UN DESA’s global economic monitoring branch, economic analysis and policy division, stated that the world requires greater international cooperation.
He believes this is critical because “we cannot revive global trade” without international cooperation.