Worldwide growth in 2004
Economic analysts are forecasting 2004 to become a good year from an economic perspective basis growth predictions reported from all corners of the world. China has been the leader in economic growth for the past couple of years and is expected to retain its title as the fastest growing economy in the world in 2004. Some analysts forecast that Chinese economy may grow as much as 10% in 2004. However there are also some conservative predictions taking into consideration the possibility of a slowdown in Chinese economical growth basis precautions taken by the Chinese government to prevent the economy from overheating. The risk lies in the investments in China where almost everybody is adding capacity and once the supply surpasses demand in the market, companies may face serious problems in paying loans back. Having said that, even those conservative analysts predict Chinese growth to be between 7-8% in 2004. Other Asian economies will also be driven by the Chinese economy. Indian economy is expected to grow over 6% next year, and Japan is predicted to record an almost 2% growth. Basis those predictions, the overall Asian economy may grow as much as 5 to 6% in 2004. There are even some institutions predicting the Asian growth as high as 8% in 2004. On the other hand the US economy is recovering strongly. The economical growth in the US is predicted to be around 4.5% in 2004. The analysts have been revising their predictions for the US economy increasing the growth forecasts consistently during the past few weeks. The interest rates are very low encouraging investments. The predictions for Europe are mostly for slow economical growth. The European Commission has announced that the Euro Zone countries are expected to record an overall economical growth of about 1.8 percent in 2004. Analysts prefer to make conservative predictions due to a very strong Euro, which makes exports of Euro Zone countries uncompetitive in international markets. Despite slow economical predictions for EU countries, the predictions for a global economical recovery are very strong. After several years of imbalance in global economies, forecasts point out to a global economical growth, despite being slow in certain areas and very strong in some others.