The World Bank warned on Tuesday of a possible global recession in 2023, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine, rising inflation, a hike in central bank interest rates, and the resurgence of COVID-19 as major factors that could cause the global economic downturn.

“Given fragile economic conditions, any new adverse development — such as higher-than-expected inflation, abrupt rises in interest rates to contain it, a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic or escalating geopolitical tensions — could push the global economy into recession,” the bank said in a statement.

The bank said it would expect global GDP to grow by 1.7 per cent in 2023 instead of the three per cent it had earlier predicted in June 2022.

The new forecast indicates that the GDP for 2023 will grow at the slowest rate in 30 years outside of the recessions of 2009 and 2020.

Major slowdowns in advanced economies, including sharp reductions in its forecast to 0.5 per cent for both the U.S. and the eurozone, according to the bank, could portend a new global recession that would occur less than three years after that of 2020.

According to the World Bank, emerging market and developing economies will be particularly hard hit by the gloomy outlook as they battle with high debt loads, depreciating currencies, slowing income growth, and sluggish business investment, which is now anticipated to grow by just 3.5 per cent annually over the next two years which is less than half of the pace recorded in the last two decades.