GENEVA, April 16. /TASS/. The global economy will gear down to 2.3% amid the lagging demand and trade shocks, the United Nations Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD) said in its report on prospects for 2025.
"Despite a slightly stronger-than-expected growth performance of 2.8 per cent in 2024, the global economy is set to slow down in 2025. UNCTAD estimates that the world gross product will expand by only 2.3 per cent in 2025, below the threshold of 2.5 per cent - a marker of a global recessionary phase," the report indicates. The pressure on the global economy mounts due to demand slowdown, trade shocks and system uncertainty.
"The prevailing levels of policy uncertainty affect economic activity negatively as companies encounter losses and put off investment and hiring decisions," UNCTAD said. "Similarly, the implementation of successive rounds of restrictive trade measures and geoeconomic confrontation carry the risks of severe disruptions to border-crossing production lines and international trade flows, in turn pulling down economic activity globally," it added.
UNCTAD experts also registered trade growth among developing economies, the so-called South-South trade. It already accounts for about a third of global turnover, they added.