Global economy set for weakest run since 2008 outside of recessions

Heightened trade tensions and policy uncertainty are expected to drive global growth down this year to its slowest pace since 2008 outside of outright global recessions, according to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report. 

The turmoil has resulted in growth forecasts being cut in nearly 70% of all economies—across all regions and income groups.

Global growth is projected to slow to 2.3 percent in 2025, nearly half a percentage point lower than the rate that had been expected at the start of the year. A global recession is not expected. 

Nevertheless, if forecasts for the next two years materialize, average global growth in the first seven years of the 2020s will be the slowest of any decade since the 1960s, the World Bank said.