Stably high interest rates in the world’s largest economies mean that global economic growth is likely to slow in 2024 after this year’s rate of recovery exceeded expectations, the Financial Times writes, citing the opinion of economists.
Thus, according to the forecast of the consulting company Consensus Economics, in 2024 GDP will grow by 2.1% compared to 2.4% expected in the economy this year. Meanwhile, the estimate for 2023 was raised from the 1.4% assumed at the beginning of the year due to unexpectedly strong consumer demand and labor market.
Capital Economics senior global economist Simon Macadam also believes that the expected slowdown in economic growth next year will be partly due to a more substantial rebound in 2023. However, he added that economists “have actually become more pessimistic about the outlook for 2024”.
This is due to beliefs that persistently strong demand will keep inflation higher for longer, pushing advanced economy Central Banks to keep rates high throughout the year.
“Demand is barely weakening, the labor market remains strong, and wages continue to rise,” notes Citi Chief Economist Nathan Sheets. – Some of the weakening in the economy (which was expected this year – IF-U) is being carried over to 2024.” In many countries, including the U.S., “there will be a recession, it will just come later,” he predicts.
Until a few months ago, the Federal Reserve was expected to start cutting rates this year. But the resilience of the U.S. economy indicates there is a small possibility that the Fed could raise borrowing costs by another quarter-point in September, to 5.5-5.75% per annum. And economists now expect the first rate cut to occur next spring.
The high probability that the U.S. economy will avoid recession this year “means the Fed will hold rates higher longer to fully suppress inflation, leading to slower growth in 2024,” according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
On average, economists forecast the U.S. economy to rebound 0.6% in 2024 after expanding 1.9% at the end of this year.
Europe’s economies have also performed “somewhat better than expected” this year, with the exception of Germany, meaning the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also likely to keep rates on hold for longer, Zandi said.
The ECB raised its deposit rate from minus 0.5% per annum in June 2022 to the current 3.75% and is not expected to cut it for most of next year. The Bank of England is forecast to increase its cost of borrowing by a further half a percent to 5.75% by the end of this year and is unlikely to start cutting it until the second half of 2024.
Christian Keller, head of economic research at Barclays, notes that the negative investor sentiment towards 2024 is also due to a slowdown in China’s GDP growth after a significant acceleration following the removal of anti-Kowitz restrictions.
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