最新财经资讯第82期总第192期国际司20123目录全球.docVIP

最 新 财 经 资 讯第 （总第192期） 国际司 2014-5-23 目 录 UN lowers world economic growth forecasts Associated Press | May 22,2014 By Edith M. Lederer The United Nations slightly lowered its forecasts for global economic growth in 2014 and 2015 on Wednesday citing a variety of reasons including the exceptionally cold winter in the United States, the escalating political crisis in Ukraine, and financial turbulence earlier this year. The new forecasts predict economic growth of 2.8 percent in 2014 and 3.2 percent in 2015, down from U.N. forecasts in December of 3 percent growth this year and 3.3 percent growth next year. Pingfan Hong, the head of the U.N.s Global Economic Monitoring Unit, told a news conference launching the report that more than five years after the financial crisis, the world economy has not recovered back to running at full capacity. Hong said one reason the U.N. lowered its forecasts was because it did not take into account the colder than usual winter in North America, which significantly impeded economic activity in the United States. Nonetheless, the U.S. forecasts remained unchanged — 2.5 percent in 2014 and 3.2 percent in 2015. The escalating political crisis in Ukraine and Russias takeover of Crimea also had an impact on the U.N. forecast because they seriously hurt Ukraines economy and sparked a massive outflow of capital from Russia, and further weakened business and consumer confidence in the country, the report said. Ukraines economy was initially projected to grow by 2.1 percent this year, but the new forecast projects that it will shrink by 2 percent. Russias economy, which had been expected to grow by 2.9 percent this year, will also be hard-hit, with the new forecast projecting just 1 percent economic growth. Hong said the U.N. had also largely discounted the impact of the U.S. Federal Reserves decision to taper its bond-buying stimulus program, which had injected more than $2 trillion into financial markets since