"Real GDP growth in emerging Asian nations is expected to ease this year and next, but remain at a high level," said the report.

China, the region's biggest and fastest growing economy, is expected to grow by 10.0 percent in 2007 and 9.5 percent in 2008, just a little bit lower than its 10.7-percent growth rate last year.

The growth forecast for India will be 8.4 percent and 8.0 percent respectively this year and next, said the report, adding that the ASEAN-4, namely Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia, will expand by 5.5 percent in 2007 and 5.8 percent next year.

According to the report, Real GDP growth in Africa is expected to accelerate to 6.2 percent this year, up from 5.5 percent in 2006.

Since the beginning of this decade, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged a little over 4.5 percent a year, the strongest seven-year period since the beginning of the 1970s, the report pointed out.

"These developments have raised hopes that Africa has entered a period of strong and sustained growth that will begin to make deeper inroads into the extremely high poverty rates that still plague the continent," it said.

It said that the projected acceleration in growth in 2007 is driven by oil-exporting countries. In Nigeria, for example, non-oil GDP has grown by an average of 8 percent over the past three years.

Meanwhile, the report also urged Latin America, whose economic growth lags other regions, to reverse its productivity performance to promote sustained growth.
The report said that economic growth in Latin America is projected to drop to 4.9 percent this year from 5.5 percent in 2006.

"The external environment is expected to become somewhat less favorable as global growth moderates and oil and metals prices decline from the record levels of 2006," said the report.

"The critical challenge for (Latin American) policy makers is to build on the reforms that have so far been implemented to accelerate growth further, entrench macroeconomic stability, and ensure that the benefits of growth are widely distributed," said the report.

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