World economic activity will remain “subdued” next year amid trade uncertainty and geopolitical tensions that are restraining investment outside of artificial intelligence and weighing on government finances, a UN agency predicted in a new report.
Global growth will weaken this year to 2.6% and maintain that pace in 2026, according to the report released Tuesday by the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development. After a 2.9% expansion last year, those projections if realized would be 0.4 percentage point lower than the pre-pandemic average.