World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) is a joint product of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the five United Nations regional commissions.
It provides an overview of recent global economic performance and short-term prospects for the world economy and of some key global economic policy and development issues. One of its purposes is to serve as a point of reference for discussions on economic, social and related issues taking place in various United Nations entities during the year.
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2010— Advance release of the Global Outlook 2010 —
| The global economy is recovering with the support of massive fiscal stimuli ... but the recovery is uneven and conditions for sustained growth remain fragile |
After a sharp and synchronized global downturn, the United Nations expects theworld economy to bounce back with a mild 2.4 per cent growth in 2010. The rebound is due to the massiveand to some extent concerted policy actions taken by the major economies, which effectively arrested afurther erosion of confidence worldwide. The cutbacks in industrial production that characterized earlystages of the recession have now been reversed.
The WESP report says from the second quarter of 2009, the world economic situation has been on themend. Global equity markets have rebounded and risk premiums on lending have fallen. Internationaltrade and global industrial production have also been recovering noticeably, with an increasing number ofcountries registering positive quarterly growth of gross domestic product (GDP).
In the outlook, global economic recovery is expected to remain sluggish, unemployment rates will stay up andinflation will remain low. The immediate challenge for policy makers will be to determine how much longer thefiscal stimulus should continue. The UN report recommends that the stimulus should continue at least untilthere are clearer signals of a more robust recovery of employment growth and private sector demand.
The "Global Outlook" chapter of the UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2010 was released on 2 December 2009. The full report, including regional overviews and detailed trends in global trade and finance, is due out in early 2010.
