UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations has lowered its forecast for global economic growth and raised the prospects for inflation in response to Middle East crises and rising oil prices. U.N. economists said Tuesday that global GDP growth is now forecast at 2.5% for 2026, down from 2.7% in January. They said it could fall to 2.1% “in a more adverse scenario.” U.N. economist Shantanu Mukherjee said that would be one of the weakest rates this century, outside the COVID-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis of 2008. The U.N. projects that global inflation will rise to 3.9% this year, 0.8% higher than forecast in January before the Iran war.
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