Global economy headed for worst half-decade in 30 years, World Bank warns

The global economy will slow in 2024 for the third straight year and appears headed for its weakest half-decade since the early 1990s, the World Bank will say Tuesday in its latest annual forecast.

While higher interest rates appear to be bringing inflation under control without the serious financial crisis or soaring unemployment that many had feared, the global economy’s overall performance is lagging, said Indermit Gill, the bank’s top economist.

After rebounding sharply in 2021 from the depths of the pandemic, the global economy grew by 3 percent in 2022, dipped to a 2.6 percent rate last year and is expected to post a tepid 2.4 percent this year, the bank said in its annual Global Economic Prospects report. Those rates lag the 3.1 percent average for the decade of the 2010s.