MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

World growth remains insufficient.

The expansion of the world economy is too weak to create sufficient jobs for the growing demand of job seekers, according to the latest report from the prestigious United States private think tank Conference Board.

The world economy represents 35 trillion US dollars but "it's not growing sufficiently fast as to absorb the emerging working force", says the report emphasizing that every year 40 million new job seekers join the labour market.

In effect, economic growth slowed down significantly during the last four decades and only Southern and Eastern Asia managed in the nineties an expansion rate greater that in the sixties.

"It's alarming to see that in the nineties considered a boom period, it was actually the decade of weaker growth for the world economy in the last forty years", indicated Gail Fosler, Conference Board chief economist. "The world economy is not made up of six, eight or even twenty advanced countries, but rather by a growing larger group of workers from 200 countries which have the same aspirations as those in the rich countries".

At the current expansion rate not only tens of million will remain unemployed but those with jobs will "press on the living standards of those in the developed countries". The work force actually expands mostly in the developing countries and among the developed countries only United States managed to increase its active population, "but half of the new workers are immigrants", points out economist Fosler.

The key issue is not only how to distribute economic growth o impede a few from expanding too fast, but rather "how to make the whole world advance faster".

Unfortunately says Ms. Fosler, "We still haven't addressed the challenge of a higher sustained world economic growth".

IMF-World Bank world growth estimate for 2004 is 3% and 2,9% in 2005.