Chapter 1: Macroeconomic Conditions and Outlook

The world economy remained in recovery mode last year, despite a slight global slowdown. In the major emerging economies of China, India and Indonesia, expansionary economic policies stimulated growth in the summer of 2016, while recessionary trends in commodity-exporting emerging economies like Russia and Brazil weakened. The pace of global economic expansion is expected to dip slightly over the course of 2017, largely due to a surge in political uncertainty. The euro area economy remains characterised by the massive structural weaknesses of some member states, with developments in private consumption remaining the key driver of its moderate recovery. Overall, growth rates for the world economy in 2017 are still only expected to be about half as high as in the years prior to the global financial crisis.