Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

1. The Development Committee met, on October 14, in Washington, D.C.

2. Global growth has improved over the past year with a recovery in investment, trade and commodity prices as well as supportive global financial conditions.

World Bank Vice-president for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller and Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga signed, on October 14, a reimbursable advisory service (RAS) agreement – a form of technical assistance - to support Hungary in its efforts to strengthen the inclusiveness of its economic growth through better insertion of jobseekers into the labor market.

In the wake of natural disasters that have threatened millions of people and destroyed thousands of buildings and dwellings over the past few months, the future resilience of urban environments is receiving a boost of support today, as the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) became the first donor in the World Bank’s City Resilience Program (CRP).

Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to grow again this year after suffering a significant GDP contraction of -1.3 percent in 2016. Still, with a global environment that remains rather neutral to growth in the region, policy makers will need to walk a fine line to increase growth while ensuring protection of the most vulnerable.

The mobilisation of domestic resources is improving steadily in African countries, according to new data from Revenue Statistics in Africa 2017 released in Addis Ababa at a meeting of tax and finance officials from 21 African countries hosted by the Department of Economic Affairs of the African Union Commission (AUC), on October 12.

Representatives of ministries dealing with transport logistics, finance institutions, the State Customs and State Border Services, the Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists, and other state bodies participated in an OSCE-organized seminar on facilitating the development of secure national transport and trade infrastructures that took place in Ashgabat on 10 and 11 October 2017.

Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is recovering at a modest pace, and is projected to pick up to 2.4% in 2017 from 1.3% in 2016, according to the new Africa’s Pulse, a bi-annual analysis of the state of African economies conducted by the World Bank. This is below the April forecast of 2.6%.

On 11 October 2017, EU ambassadors endorsed the political agreement reached between the presidency and the European Parliament on a proposed methodology for assessing market distortions in third countries.

Despite a growth slowdown in 2017 at 2.1 percent, economic prospects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are projected to improve in 2018 and 2019 with growth exceeding 3 percent according to the new World Bank MENA Economic Monitor titled “Refugee Crisis in MENA, Meeting the Development Challenge.” Both MENA’s oil exporters and oil importers will benefit from a steady improvement in global growth; increased trade with Europe and Asia; more stable commodity markets, especially oil; and reforms undertaken in some of the countries in the region.