Growth over the 2016-18 forecast period could pick-up modestly in the eastern part of the region, which includes Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, and Central Asia, supported by a gradual stabilization of commodity prices and more favorable economic spillovers from the Russian Federation as its recession bottoms out and growth returns. The western part of the region, which includes Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and the Western Balkans, should grow moderately in 2016, buoyed by recovery in the Euro Area.

Global growth disappointed again in 2015, slowing to 2.4 percent, and is expected to recover at a slower pace than previously envisioned. Growth is projected to reach 2.9 percent in 2016, as a modest recovery in advanced economies continues and activity stabilizes among major commodity exporters, according to the World Bank's January 2016 Global Economic Prospects. Forecasts are subject to substantial downside risks. A more protracted slowdown across large emerging markets could have substantial spillovers to other developing economies, and eventually hold back the recovery in advanced economies.

A broad-based slowdown across developing countries could pose a threat to hard-won gains in raising people out of poverty, the report warns.

"More than 40 percent of the world's poor live in the developing countries where growth slowed in 2015," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. "Developing countries should focus on building resilience to a weaker economic environment and shielding the most vulnerable. The benefits from reforms to governance and business conditions are potentially large and could help offset the effects of slow growth in larger economies."

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http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-economic-prospects

World Bank Group. 2016. Global Economic Prospects, January 2016: Spillovers amid
Weak Growth. Washington, DC: World Bank. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0675-9. License: Creative
Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO

Key words: Economic growth in Russia. Economic growth world bank.