The World Bank sharply lowered its global growth forecast for 2016 on Wednesday, predicting that emerging markets will struggle amid China’s slowdown and the plunge in commodity prices.
The global economy is expected to grow 2.9% this year, largely because of gains in advanced nations, such as the U.S. That’s an improvement from estimated growth of 2.4% in 2015 but down from its 3.3% forecast in June, the World Bank said.
“Stronger growth in advanced markets will only partially offset the risks of continued weakness in major emerging markets,” said Ayhan Kose, director of the bank’s development prospects group. “In addition, the risk of financial turmoil in a new era of higher borrowing costs remains.”
The U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.7% this year following a 2.5% expansion in 2015, estimates that represent slight downgrades of 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively. The global troubles have hurt U.S. exports, and those effects have been accentuated by a strong dollar that makes them more expensive for overseas buyers. U.S. energy investment also has been clobbered by low oil prices.
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