World Bank Regional Economic Update October 2023

The World Bank released its latest economic updates and regional growth forecasts on October 4, 2023. This data is released twice a year in anticipation of the upcoming World Bank Group Spring and Annual Meetings. These regional economic updates underscore the complexity and diversity of economic conditions across the globe. While some regions continue to showcase resilience and promise, others face significant challenges.

For East Asia and the Pacific, the World Bank anticipates continued robust growth at 5 per cent in 2023, although expecting a slowdown in the second half of 2023, predicting 4.5 per cent in 2024. The growth forecast for China in 2023 is 5.1 per cent. However, in 2024 China's growth is likely to be affected by ongoing domestic challenges, such as the effects of the economic reopening. As a result, China's growth is expected to slow down to 4.4 per cent in 2024.

South Asia is projected to grow by 5.8 per cent in 2023, surpassing other developing regions but falling short of pre-pandemic levels. For the emerging markets and developing economies of the Europe and Central Asian region, growth is projected at 2.4 per cent for 2023. While the World Bank has increased the growth projection of Latin America and the Caribbean up to 2 per cent in 2023 (0.6 percentage points) and a forecast of 2.3 per cent in 2024, growth remains insufficient and lower than all other global regions.

Meanwhile, the Middle East and North Africa Region faces a sharp economic slowdown, with GDP forecasted to drop from 6 per cent in 2022 to 1.9 per cent in 2023 due to oil production costs, financial challenges, and high inflation. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the forecasted economic growth is set to slow down, lowering to 2.5 per cent in 2023 from 3.6 per cent in 2022 as a result of instability, weak growth in major economies in the region and global uncertainty.