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Global growth appears to have peaked, with demographics, a lack of investment, a slowing in productivity gains and tightening monetary policy placing limits on economic expansion, the World Bank said.
世界银行(World Bank)表示，全球经济增速似已见顶，人口结构、缺少投资、生产率增速放缓以及货币政策收紧将限制经济扩张。
The world’s economic output grew 3 per cent last year as more than half of economies accelerated, thanks to a rebound in investment, manufacturing activity and trade, bank economists said. The global economy is expected to maintain that rough growth level through 2020.
世行经济学家表示，去年全球经济增长3%，逾一半的经济体增长加速，这得益于投资、制造业活动和贸易回暖。据该行预计，从今年起到2020年，全球经济年增速将继续保持与去年大致相当的水平。
But that may be as good as it gets, according to the bank’s annual report on the state of the global economy. The problem facing the world is that after years of recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, most advanced and developing economies have closed the output gap between actual and potential economic growth.
但根据世行关于全球经济状况的年度报告，这或许是最好的局面了。当前世界面临的问题是，自2008年金融危机过去以后经过多年的复苏，多数发达和发展中经济体的实际增速已经接近潜在增速。
Moreover, it is hard to see that changing unless governments embrace the sort of reforms and investment drives that the bank and other institutions have been demanding for years.
另外，除非各国政府实施世行和其他机构多年来一直呼吁的改革和投资计划，否则这种局面很难改变。
“If you step out of the [current] snapshot [of strong growth] and look at?.?.?.?the historical progression?.?.?.?what you actually observe is that, while the growth is real and welcome, the potential growth of the global economy is going to be somewhat limited in the future,” Shantayanan Devarajan, the bank’s senior director for development economics, said on Tuesday.
世行发展经济学高级总监尚塔亚南?德瓦拉詹(Shantayanan Devarajan)周二表示：“如果你跳出（对当前强劲增长的）印象，观察……历史演变……实际上你会注意到，尽管增长是真实且可喜的，但未来全球经济的潜在增速将在某种程度上受限。”
As a group, advanced economies are expected to slow in the coming years as they run up against full employment and as central bankers raise rates to contain inflation, according to the World Bank. Already, the bank said, it expected growth in advanced economies to slow from 2.3 per cent last year to 2.2 per cent this year and 1.7 per cent by 2020.
世行预计，未来几年，在充分就业和央行为控制通胀而加息的情况下，发达经济体整体上将放缓增长。该行表示，今年发达经济体的增速将从去年的2.3%放慢至2.2%，到2020年将降至1.7%。
But emerging and developing economies, which grew by 4.3 per cent as a group last year, are also likely to hit ceilings and contribute less to global growth.
另一方面，去年增长4.3%的新兴经济体和发展中经济体也可能触及天花板，对全球增长的贡献减少。
In many of the major emerging economies that have for years fuelled global expansion the underlying potential growth has fallen considerably over the past decade. It is likely to continue doing so over the next 10 years, the bank said.
多年来，主要新兴经济体带动了全球经济的扩张，其中很多新兴经济体的基本潜在增速在过去10年已经大幅下滑，世行预计未来10年它们可能还将延续这种下滑势头。
That reality, the bank’s economists say, is the result mainly of long-term demographic changes. Countries such as China are seeing their labour forces shrink as populations age. That has coincided with slowing productivity growth.
世行经济学家表示，这种情况主要是长期人口结构变化所导致的。伴随着人口老龄化，中国等国家的劳动力规模萎缩。与此同时，生产率增速正在放缓。
Either could be addressed with investment and innovation and the case for encouraging both was now “absolutely critical”, Mr Devarajan said.
德瓦拉詹表示，这两个问题都可依靠投资和创新来解决，如今鼓励投资和创新有着极为迫切的理由。
The concerns over the long-term future of the global economy also coincide with fears in the short term.
全球经济的未来可以说是既有远虑又有近忧。
Ayhan Kose, one of the authors of the new report, said “downside risks continue to dominate” for the global economy this year.
这份新报告的作者之一艾汉?科泽(Ayhan Kose)表示，今年全球经济“仍然是下行风险为主”。
Among those risks is a sudden rise in the now-low borrowing costs that have helped fuel much of the recovery in recent years, either from quicker than anticipated rate rises from the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, or because of growing concerns about soaring capital markets.
一个风险是眼下处于低水平的借贷成本（近年来帮助推动经济复苏的一大因素）可能突然上升，要么是因为美联储(Fed)和其他央行的加息步伐快于预期，要么是因为资本市场飙升日益让投资者担忧。
Protectionism and a resulting slowdown in global trade also remained a risk, especially as the 4.3 per cent increase in the volume of goods and services traded last year had been so important as an engine for broader growth.
保护主义以及由此引发的全球贸易增长放缓也是风险之一，尤其是考虑到去年全球商品和服务贸易增长4.3%是整体经济增长的重要引擎。
Moreover, Mr Kose said the slowdown in the world’s potential growth had also made it more vulnerable to future shocks.
此外，科泽表示，潜在增速放缓也将使未来全球经济更容易受到冲击。
Short of an unexpected surge in productivity gains, the world economy looked as if it faced a “mediocre future”, he said. “This is the time to undertake responsible forward-looking policies.”
科泽表示，除非生产率出人意料地迅猛增长，全球经济似乎面临着“平庸的未来”。“现在是时候采取负责任的前瞻性政策了。”
