<Anchor> It
is a friendly economy time.
Today (12th) I will be with reporter Kwon Ae-ri.
Yesterday, the World Bank released its global economic growth forecast for this year.
However, the forecast was significantly lowered.
<Reporter>
Yes.
The World Bank The World Bank is one of the institutions that can be said to analyze the world economy with the most public confidence in general, along with the IMF and the OECD, and announces economic forecasts twice a year.
Just before dawn yesterday, we gave our first forecast for the year.
However, what surprised me a little was that it was 1.3 percentage points lower than the forecast released in June of last year, half a year ago.
I predicted that the world economy would grow by 3% this year, but it was 1.7%.
It may not sound like a big deal because the number goes back and forth between 1 and 3, but in fact, the difference is very large even if it goes back and forth only to the decimal point while talking about the prospect of a global economy on a literal scale.
It's only been half a year since the previous forecast, but it drops by almost half, which doesn't happen often.
<Anchor>
In the end, the reason for such a forecast is that this year, a real economic recession will come, so strongly warned that this has a strong meaning.
(Yes, it is.) Then, when we compare the past history, can we make a comparison with some time?
<Reporter>
First of all, the World Bank's forecast is that this year will be the third worst in the world over the past 30 years.
The only time it was more serious than the forecast that came out this time was when the corona crisis began in 2020, three years ago, and during the financial crisis in the United States in 2009.
However, right after the corona and the financial crisis were more serious than stagnation.
At the time, the world economy was growing negatively twice at the time, regressing more than before.
This time, it is expected to grow, but in the past two crises, the crisis was avoided by releasing huge amounts of money at a level unprecedented in economic history.
But after that, side effects, including inflation, began to appear.
The downturn now is an extension of that side effect.
So this year's recession is something that can't be solved by releasing money.
Not only the World Bank, but also the IMF president said that a third of the global economy could fall into recession on New Year's Day.
It is not likely that the IMF governor just said the first word of the new year, and the IMF also seems to be preparing much more depressing figures than the forecast three months ago.
<Anchor>
What we have talked about so far is the World Bank, the IMF, and the world economy in general.
I wonder what Korea is like. What did you say about Korea?
<Reporter>
This is important, but the World Bank does not release individual forecasts for Korea.
The world is divided into 8 economic blocs and a regional outlook is presented, but it was thought that only the East Asia-Pacific region, including Korea, would do well.
Because, in conclusion, the World Bank bet that the Chinese economy will recover to some extent this year.
China also lowered its growth rate forecast by nearly 1 percentage point compared to six months ago, but still expected to grow by 4.3% and do better than last year.
This is a slightly different perspective from the interview with the IMF president mentioned earlier.
The head of the IMF saw that China would have a hard time this year and that it could undermine the world's growth rate.
How well we will do this year depends on which side of the two authoritative bodies are right in these conflicting diagnoses.
Our livelihood ultimately depends on how well we earn money and how well our exports work.
And only when China's demand revives, it is highly likely that our export curve, which began to decline rapidly from the end of last year, will rise again, including semiconductors.
It's been less than two weeks since the beginning of the new year, but if you see some hopeful signs right now, the value of money is moving closer to the World Bank's prospect, that is, East Asia's outlook, than the IMF's, that East Asia will do well.
Chinese money yuan and our money won are quite expensive compared to last year.
In the mid-1,200 won range against the dollar, it can be seen that the world's eyes are on the side that China and our economy will do well to some extent that our money is power.
An economic recession is unavoidable, but the question is what level the shock will be, but it could be a recession with a somewhat soft landing. The World Bank outlook and exchange rates are now saying that.