Economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the world's biggest net oil-exporting region, may rebound to 3.7 per cent this year and 4.4 per cent in 2011, the World Bank has said in a report, Bloomberg reported. Growth will accelerate from an estimated 2.9 per cent in 2009 after the global credit crisis sent oil prices tumbling, the Washington-based bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report on its Web site today. Growth was 4.3 per cent in 2008, the bank said. The economy of Egypt, the most populous Arab country, may grow 5.2 per cent this year and six per cent in 2011, the report said, from an estimated rate of 4.7 per cent in 2009. The report added that Egypt is one of the most affected countries by world meltdown due to its heavy food imports and anticipated that the country may face severe financial losses. The bank announced its projections for world growth this year, raising them yet they are worried about the third and fourth quarters because already economies are planning to pull out stimulus measures, while still there are high unemployment rates in major economies. It expects the world economy to grow 2.7 per cent in 2010 stepping out of the worst recession since post world war era versus the prior expectations of two per cent while growth may climb to 3.2 per cent in 2011. The stimulus programmes have helped restore long lost confidence as stock markets climbed 78 per cent from the low recorded last year while industrial production output inclined around the world. The bank said the nascent recovery from the worst crisis since the Great Depression was "expected to slow later this year as the impact of fiscal stimulus wanes." "Overall, these are challenging times," said Justin Lin, World Bank chief economist. "The depth of the recession means that even though growth has returned, countries and individuals will continue to feel the pain of the crisis for years to come," he said. Key impediments to growth are troubled financial markets and sluggish private sector demand amid high unemployment, the Washington-based development lender said in its "Global Economic Prospects 2010" report. Overall, global gross domestic product (GDP) -- a broad measure of the output of goods and services that fell by 2.2 per cent last year -- is expected to expand 2.7 per cent in 2010 and 3.2 per cent in 2011. Growth would be led by developing countries, whose economies would have "relatively robust" growth of 5.2 per cent this year and 5.8 per cent in 2011, after managing to buck the global downturn with 1.2 per cent growth last year. China's massive economy would continue to be the primary engine, with growth at nine per cent this year and the next. South Asia would post a 6.9 per cent expansion in 2010, including a 7.5 per cent rise in India. Growth would be more moderate this year in Sub-Saharan Africa (3.8 per cent), in Latin America (3.1 per cent) and in eastern and central Europe and Central Asia (2.7 per cent). Rich countries, impacted the most by the global financial crisis, would not recover so quickly. The United States, the world's biggest economy and the epicenter of the financial crisis that triggered the downturn, would see 2.5 per cent growth in 2010 and 2.7 per cent in 2011. Hans Timmer, an author of the report, said data indicates that unemployment will only get worse. "Actually growth this year is not even strong enough to generate the jobs for the new people that are coming on the global jobs market, let alone that you need to create employment for the people who have lost their jobs in 2009," Timmer said at a news briefing. The projected modest global expansion this year should mean a rebound in world trade volumes that plummeted 14.4 per cent in 2009. Trade volumes were projected to expand by 4.3 per cent this year, and accelerate to 6.2 per cent in 2011. Oil prices were forecast to hold around $76 a barrel in 2010 and 2011. "The recovery is fragile and expected to slow in the second half of 2010 as the growth impact of fiscal and monetary measures wane and the current inventory cycle runs its course," said the poverty-fighting bank. The bank underscored the uncertainties about the strength and durability of the recovery, saying it would depend on how much household- and business-sector demand firms over the next few quarters. "Neither a double-dip scenario, where growth slows appreciably in 2011, or a strengthening recovery can be ruled out," said the report. That assessment contradicted the view of the bank's sibling institution, the International Monetary Fund, whose managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn repeatedly has dismissed a double-dip scenario.
