Despite recent softening, global economic growth will remain robust at 3.1 percent in 2018 before slowing gradually over the next two years, as advanced-economy growth decelerates and the recovery in major commodity-exporting emerging market and developing economies levels off, the World Bank said. 

"If it can be sustained, the robust economic growth that we have seen this year could help lift millions out of poverty, particularly in the fast-growing economies of South Asia," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. "But growth alone won't be enough to address pockets of extreme poverty in other parts of the world. Policymakers need to focus on ways to support growth over the longer run—by boosting productivity and labor force participation—in order to accelerate progress toward ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity."

Activity in advanced economies is expected to grow 2.2 percent in 2018 before easing to a 2 percent rate of expansion next year, as central banks gradually remove monetary stimulus, the June 2018 Global Economic Prospects says. Growth in emerging market and developing economies overall is projected to strengthen to 4.5 percent in 2018, before reaching 4.7 percent in 2019 as the recovery in commodity exporters matures and commodity prices level off following this year's increase.

A Special Focus cautions that, over the long run, the anticipated slowdown in global commodity demand could put a cap on commodity price prospects and thus on future growth in commodity-exporting countries. Major emerging markets have accounted for a substantial share of the increase in global consumption of metals and energy over the past two decades, but growth of their demand for most commodities is expected to decelerate, the Special Focus section says.

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