Oil prices: what goes down must come up? Will the EU economy hold up? Is the Chinese economy slowing down? These are some of the questions that the online community might be interested in asking the team of economists from UN DESA’s Development Policy and Analysis Division (DPAD) on 12 February when they will be hosting a Facebook chat.

Taking place from 10 am to 11:30 am EST, the team of economists from DPAD’s Global Economic Monitoring Unit will be ready to discuss the current state of the world economy and forecasts for 2015 and 2016 as identified in the recently released World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015.

The report forecasts global economic growth to increase marginally over the next two years at 3.1 per cent in 2015 and 3.3 per cent in 2016, compared with an estimated growth of 2.6 per cent for 2014. An expected US interest rate increase, remaining euro area fragility, a further slowdown in developing economies and geopolitical conflicts pose major concerns for the global economic outlook.

“The report of the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 contains a lot of detailed analysis not only on the global economy, but also on the regional economic outlook,” says Pingfan Hong, the Director of DPAD, as he welcomes the online community to join the chat with his team of economists and the authors of the report.

Join the Facebook chat and post your questions at http://bit.ly/AskWESP2015 or via Twitter using the hashtag #AskWESP2015.