Global economy achieves growth higher than anticipated in 2023, says QNB

Global economy achieves growth higher than anticipated in 2023, says QNB

The estimated global growth of close to 3 percent for 2023 is a significant achievement, particularly given the initial growth expectation of 2.1 percent. Importantly, the better-than-expected performance was broad-based, affecting all major economies, including the US, the Euro area and China, Qatar National Bank (QNB) said in its weekly commentary.

In this article, QNB dived into three key drivers of 2023, First, US growth proved to be significantly more robust than previously anticipated. With growth estimated to close at 2.4 percent for the year, the US economy has even re-accelerated from last year, when it ran close to its long-term trend at 2 percent. This took place despite the continuation of aggressive monetary policy tightening by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) throughout most of the year, which led the policy rate to the current 5.5 percent level.

QNB added that robust consumption, in particular, which represents around 70 percent of the countrys GDP, helped to explain the US economic performance. US households are still benefiting from strong balance sheets, high levels of financials savings available for spending, and healthy income growth. As most US households re-financed their obligations at record low interest rates during the immediate post-pandemic period, they are mostly