The World Economy

Extract

It increasingly appears that the decline in global economic activity that set in during the latter half of 2000 has started to come to an end. Trade levels have begun to rise modestly, consumer and business confidence have strengthened and the present accommodative stance of macroeconomic policies is clearly having a positive impact on demand in many of the major industrialised economies, especially in North America. Global economic activity is now estimated to have risen by 2.4 per cent last year on a PPP basis, approximately half a percentage point more than previously thought. This upward revision largely reflects the strength of domestic demand within many developing economies, with growth remaining especially strong in China and India and also in several other transition economies. In contrast, the volume of international trade in 2001 appears to have been largely unchanged from a year earlier, as we have predicted for some time.