The World Bank has cut its global growth forecast for 2013 due to the difficult recovery that economies worldwide are currently undergoing despite the improvement in the financial markets.

Specifically, it now expects growth of 2.4% this year, down from its prior forecast of 3%. The organisation indicated that a "real recovery" still needs to materialise and said it expects 2012 growth to clock in at 2.3%.

"What we are seeing is a recovery we anticipated in June being pushed a little further back in time, beginning closer to the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter of 2013, rather than beginning a little earlier," the bank said in its report.

The World Bank highlighted the "unusual weakness" in US investment and industrial activity and notes that it now only expects a "slow acceleration in growth" in the country for the next three years. In advanced economies, it forecasts that growth will be 5.5% in 2013, 5,7% in 2014 and 5.8% in 2015.

Meanwhile, the organisation noted that growth would not return to the Eurozone until 2014, projecting a 0.9% expansion next year. The World Bank expects the single currency area to register a contraction this year of 0.1%.

MG

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