The GDP growth in South Asia slipped to 4.8 percent in 2012, mainly reflecting a continued deceleration in India, slower growth in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and sluggish growth in Pakistan and Nepal.
Regional GDP growth is projected to pick up to 5.2 percent in 2013, before accelerating to 6.0 percent and 6.4 percent in 2014 and 2015, in line with strengthening external demand, normal monsoons, and a gradual pickup in investment spending.
Growth in India is projected to rise to 5.7 percent in the 2013 fiscal year, and firm to 6.5 percent and 6.7 percent in FY2014 and FY2015, respectively, according to a World Bank web release from Washington.
Continued progress in fiscal consolidation and in reducing structural constraints will determine the pace of recovery. Domestic risks dominate, including a possible derailing of reforms, and weaker than expected monsoon rains.
The GDP of the developing countries is now projected to be around 5.1 percent in 2013, strengthening to 5.6 percent and 5.7 percent in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Looking at broader region-wide trends, the East Asia & Pacific region is expected to grow by 7.3 percent this year; Europe & Central Asia by 2.8 percent; Latin America & the Caribbean by 3.3 percent; Middle East & North Africa by 2.5 percent; South Asia by 5.2 percent; and Sub-Saharan Africa by 4.9 percent.
The growth in Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and Turkey has been held back by supply bottlenecks.
The prospects for developing countries are varied. In several developing countries, notably in East Asia & the Pacific, the demand appears to be expanding faster than supply, resulting in growing imbalances, such as inflation, asset-price bubbles, rising debt levels and deteriorating current account balances.
While external risks have eased, growth in these countries is unlikely to reach pre-crisis rates unless supply-side reforms are completed. In China also, the growth has slowed as authorities seek to rebalance the economy.
Risks from advanced economies have eased and growth is firming, despite ongoing contraction in the Euro Area.
However, the pick-up in developing countries will be modest because of capacity constraints in several middle income countries, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report.
Global GDP is expected to expand about 2.2 percent this year and strengthen to 3.0 percent and 3.3 percent in 2014 and 2015.
For high-income countries, fiscal consolidation, high unemployment and still weak consumer and business confidence will keep growth this year to a modest 1.2 percent, firming to 2.0 percent in 2014 and 2.3 percent by 2015.
Economic contraction in the Euro Area is projected to be 0.6 percent for 2013, compared with the previous projection of 0.1 percent. Euro Area growth is expected to be a modest 0.9 percent in 2014 and 1.5 percent in 2015.
“While there are markers of hope in the financial sector, the slowdown in the real economy is turning out to be unusually protracted,” Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank.
“This is reflected in the stubbornly high unemployment in industrialized nations, with unemployment in the Eurozone actually rising, and in the slowing growth in emerging economies, with India’s annual growth having dropped below 6 percent for the first time in 10 years.
Global trade, after contracting for several months, is expanding once again, but trade is expected to expand only 4.0 percent in 2013, well off the pre-crisis pace of 7.3 percent.
“The coming on stream of new mines and energy sources is putting downward pressure on most industrial commodity prices. If commodity prices were to decline even faster than expected, commodity exporting developing countries could experience serious fiscal setbacks and weaker growth,” said Hans Timmer, Director, Development Prospects Group.
Part of the resilience of global trade, despite the weakness in high-income economies, has been due to rapid expansion in South-South trade. More than 50 percent of developing country exports now go to other developing countries.
Even when China is excluded, South-South trade has been growing at an average rate of 17.5 percent a year over the past decade, with manufacturing trade expanding as rapidly as commodities trade.
Gross capital flows to developing countries, which were relatively weak for most of the post-crisis period, have reached record levels. International bond issuance by developing countries is also at record levels, while bank lending and equity issuance for developing countries is up by almost 70 percent as compared with first 5 months of 2012.
The rebound in bank-lending suggests that for developing countries the most acute effects of high-income banking-sector deleveraging have passed. Despite the uptick, as a percent of developing-country GDP, capital flows remain well below pre-crisis levels.
Regional Highlights
The growth in the East Asia & the Pacific region was robust in the first quarter of 2013, but slower than last year.
Overall, the regional economy is projected to expand by around 7.3 percent in 2013, before accelerating to 7.5 percent in 2014 and 2015. The weakness in 2013 partly reflects a weak 7.7 percent growth in China, which is expected to strengthen to 8.0 and 7.9 percent in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Regional growth, excluding China, will slow in 2013 to 5.7 percent, partly due to fiscal policy tightening, but then firm on solid growth in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Risks to the region include those surrounding the gradual reduction in Chinese investment, Japanese quantitative easing, rapidly expanding credit, and rising asset prices.
After slowing sharply in 2012, GDP growth in Europe & Central Asia in 2013 will be supported by improved agricultural performance, reduced deleveraging pressures, and strengthening external demand.
The rebound will, nevertheless, be constrained by weak carryover growth due to slow growth in the last quarter of 2012, ongoing fiscal adjustments by the region’s economies, high unemployment, and still weak export demand.
The region’s growth is expected to reach 2.8 percent in 2013 and 4.2 percent by 2015. Medium-term prospects for the region will critically depend on progress in addressing structural bottlenecks to economic growth, including capacity constraints, high unemployment and lack of competitiveness.
Source: UNB Connect
