Song Chen/China Daily

While forecasts for nation's GDP vary, its slowdown affects the global economy

This year has started amid a climate of considerable global economic uncertainty.

Twelve months ago there was some sense of the global financial crisis beginning to recede in the rearview mirror.

But in the last few months of 2014 its specter reappeared. Europe looks again as though it could be plunged into recession and there are renewed questions about whether the euro will survive in its current form.

The recent collapse in the oil price, while a fillip to oil importing countries, has negative effects on not only Russia but also African economies like Nigeria and Angola, which are major producers.

One of the few bright spots remains the United States, which grew at 3.5 percent in the third quarter whereas the fastest growing major European economy in 2014 was the United Kingdom at 3 percent.

Many economic commentators are moving to the view that recovery from the "Great Recession" might be a 15- to 20-year event, rather than a 5- to 10-year one that might have been more the consensus a year ago.

China shielded itself from the 2008 downturn with the largest economic stimulus package in history, from which there is still an overhang of local government debt.

But the main focus is now on its GDP growth, which is seen as a large contributor to growth elsewhere in the world.