According to MHD (Transport Intelligence Report, 2017, 47(2), pg6), 2016 has been the weakest year for the global economy since the Great Recession of 2008-09. Global economic growth was just 2.3% in 2016, down from 2.7% in 2015.
Looking forward, some of the World Bank’s expectations for 2017 are:
- Global growth is projected to rise from 3% to 2.7% in 2017.
- Political uncertainty has been identified as a key risk that could limit growth in 2017
- Rising oil prices are expected to help boost three leading commodity exporters – Brazil, Russia & Nigeria – from recession in 2017.
- World trade volume growth is expected to increase to 6% in 2017
Main points regarding the logistics industry are first, that unsurprisingly the expectation of slightly higher economic growth in 2017 is good news, but don’t count in any way on the global economy to deliver a more favorable environment in 2017 than 2016, as more certainty surrounds these forecasts than in previous years.
