Presenting its twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects report in Washington, the World Bank warned emerging nations around the globe of a rocky road ahead as the US moved towards tightening monetary policy and the greenback kept strengthening.

The global lender trimmed its growth forecast for 2015 to 2.8 percent, down from the 3.0-percent expansion it predicted in January.

The World Bank said the revision also had to do with a slow economic turnaround in Europe and Japan and a slowdown of the Chinese economy.

Don't get caught off guard

The bank was concerned about the prospects of emerging economies not only in China, saying that quite a number of countries were likely to be hit by continued capital outflows and low commodity prices.

The lender noted that the plunge in oil prices had lowered costs for net energy importers, but that because of a stronger dollar the benefits of cheaper crude had not registered deeply on the economies' balance sheets.

"We're advising nations, especially emerging economies, to fasten seat belts," World Bank economist Kaushik Basu said in a statement, adding that the US Federal Reserve would be better off holding its benchmark federal funds rate at near-zero levels until early next year so as not to stifle global growth.

hg/ng (AFP, Reuters)