Q&A – Johannes Jooste

Four years after the start of the financial crisis and the global economy is still struggling with anemic growth. The European sovereign debt crisis continues, America’s economy is being shaken by a ‘fiscal cliff’ and emerging markets, led by China, saw a slowdown in economic growth. For a forecast going into 2013, Executive sat with Johannes Jooste, head of strategy for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, while he visited Beirut in December.  The global economy came under pressure in 2012; what is your global gross domestic product growth forecast for 2013? We are slightly higher than 2012, which was worse than we thought. 2013 is going to be marginally better but that doesn’t make it particularly attractive. So the number comes out somewhere in the region of 1.3 percent for 2012, and 1.5 percent for 2013. We think that the breakdown is going to be