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The World Bank drastically cut its global economic growth forecast for this year by half, warning of an economic recession.

Then, the representative way to stimulate the economy right away is to release money into the market, but as countries around the world, including the United States, are expected to continue intensive monetary policy in the opposite direction this year due to inflation, concerns about an economic recession are growing.



Correspondent Kim Jong-won from New York.



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World Bank announced that this year's global economic growth rate is expected to be 1.7%.



This is a figure that is 1.3 percentage points lower than the 3.0% expected in June of last year, and is almost halved.



The US growth rate was revised down to 0.5%, which is nearly 2 percentage points lower than the previous forecast, and the eurozone also lowered its growth rate by a similar figure.



However, China, which grew by 2.7% last year, is expected to recover to a growth rate of 4% this year.



This is the lowest figure in more than 30 years since the 1990s, except for 2009 and 2020, when there was a global economic downturn due to the financial crisis and the spread of Corona.



The World Bank said that this slowdown in growth has led to a global economic recession, and that it has lowered the growth rate due to rising interest rates in countries around the world due to inflation and regional conflicts such as war.



[Aihan Kose/World Bank Chief Economist: Our calculation is that further interest rate hikes by major central banks around the world will lead to a decrease in per capita income in countries around the world, triggering a global recession.



] Chairman of the Reserve System, Powell, said that the Fed should be independent from politics, and expressed its intention to continue high-intensity monetary policy going forward.



[Jerome Powell/Chairman of the US Federal Reserve System: In a situation where inflation is intensifying, an unpopular policy of raising interest rates even in the event of a recession may be needed to control inflation.]



The outlook for Korea is not mentioned separately in this report .

Meanwhile, the World Bank forecasts next year's economic growth rate to be 2.7%, higher than this year's.



(Video coverage: Lee Sang-wook, video editing: Jung Yong-hwa)