After reaching 3.1 percent in both 2017 and 2018, global growth is expected to decelerate over the next two years as global slack dissipates, major central banks remove policy accommodation, and the recovery in commodity exporters matures. Amid moderating international trade and tightening global financing conditions, growth in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is projected to plateau, reaching 4.7 percent in 2019 and 2020, up from 4.5 percent in 2018. Secondly, a credit event in a major emerging market or a sudden tightening of monetary policy in the United States leading to a spike in interest rates could roil financial markets, causing a slowdown especially in highly indebted countries. From the 1975 oil crisis, to the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, to the 2007-09 global financial crisis, there has been a financial market crisis every ten years or so. It is now ten years since the last crisis.

Moreover, as the analytical sections of the report show, increasing corporate debt in some emerging market economies has left them especially vulnerable to interest rate and exchange rate shocks. And the prospects for commodity exporters will be limited as the major commodity -importing countries, especially China, shift their demand away from oil and other commodities.