(03.02.2015) DNB Markets has released Economic Outlook 1/2015. The report contains our analyses of and forecasts for economic growth and inflation, foreign exchange, interest rates and commodities.
Global economic growth came to 3.2 per last year, almost ½ percentage point lower than what we forecast at the beginning of the year. Seeing as the news has been dominated by conflicts and crises this was perhaps better than might have been feared.
Last year, the U.S. economy finally took off, the Eurozone continued to disappoint (and the euro fell) and China took over the leader’s yellow jersey as the world’s biggest economy while continuing its controlled growth slowdown.
2014 was also the year of the biggest fall in oil prices since the financial crisis. The term “oil brake” has taken on a new meaning in Norwegian and now refers to the oil-induced slowdown. The Norwegian economy is expected to slow down in 2015, while growth picks up a bit for many of our trading partners. Even so, we do not expect much more than 2 per cent growth in the rich half of the world. And a number of countries are on the brink of deflation.
2015 will also be the year when central banks come to a parting of the ways. The ECB and Bank of Japan will continue to give full throttle while the central banks in the UK and USA gradually will ease up on the gas pedal.
We expect economic growth in the emerging half of the global economy to remain at around 4½ per cent and that global growth will come to 3½ per cent this year, which we also expect in the years 2016-18.
» Download the report (pdf)