World Bank revises Latin America, Caribbean growth forecast to 2% from 1.5%

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The World Bank revised Latin America and the Caribbean region's economic growth forecast for 2023 to 2% on Wednesday, up from a previous projection of 1.7% in June.

"Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) continues to face the same challenges of economic recovery following the pandemic, persistent higher debt, and the inflationary pressures arising from a variety of sources affecting many regions of the world," it said in its economic review report for the region.

While GDP in Central and South American countries bounced back rapidly and surpassed pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, they are still in the process of converging to their pre-pandemic trend, according to the bank.

The countries in the region face some difficulties, however, such as high interest rates and soft commodity prices that put downward pressure on economic growth, it said.

"Well-grounded policy responses have led to largely recovering employment and income losses from the pandemic and falling rates of inflation. However, the region faces the mutually reinforcing triple challenges of low growth, limited fiscal space, and citizen dissatisfaction," it said in a statement.

Argentina and Haiti are expected to perform worst this year with a 2.5% economic contraction for each. Guyana's economy is anticipated to soar 29%.