Shoppers crowd at the Ameyoko shopping district, which is Tokyo's biggest street food market, as they do their last-minute New Year's shopping in Tokyo, Japan December 29, 2022. (Photo: REUTERS)

“Despite this uptick, the growth rate is still well below the average growth rate in the two decades before the pandemic of 3.1 percent,” said the World Economic Situation and Prospects report issued by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The UN forecasts are less than the International Monetary Fund, which said earlier this year that global growth would fall to 2.9 percent in 2023 from 3.4 percent in 2022 and for 2024 would pick up slightly to 3.1 percent.