OECD predicts two more years of economic expansion, but oil and trade are major risks

Fabian Bimmer | Reuters

Workers of German steel manufacturer Salzgitter AG stand in front of a furnace at a plant in Salzgitter, Germany, March 1, 2018.

Digital infrastructure and digital inclusion, O’Reilly added, will be core to providing those in rural and underprivileged areas access to better tools for education, financial literacy, and business opportunities. And improved and simplified investment procedures, on both federal and local levels, will boost cross-border commercial flows and strengthen private sector job creation.

But in the absence of dedicated reforms and their effective enforcement, there will be trouble ahead.

“If you’ve got rising interest rates and you don’t have business confidence in the long-term, you’re going to see reducing business investment over time and you’re going to see the end of the story of fiscal stimulus,” O’Reilly said.

Against a backdrop of climbing oil prices, financial strains on emerging markets, tightening monetary policy, trade tensions and political shocks like those underway in Italy that potentially threaten all of Europe, the chances of these risks derailing global growth remain closer to home than many policymakers would like to admit.