Dollar slips on World Bank's China remarks The Australian dollar has fallen slightly on the back of a World Bank report that forecasts China's growth to moderate as the world's second-largest economy moves away from investment-driven expansion. The World Bank said that while the world's economies appeared to be "finally turning the corner" five years after the financial crisis, growth would be vulnerable to a rise in global interest rates and the US Federal Reserve's wind-back of its unprecedented stimulus program this year. The local currency, which already fell almost a cent overnight after encouraging US retail sales data, eased another quarter of a cent to 89.46 US cents after the report from the global body was published about noon today. "The overall report from the World Bank is still reasonably positive on the global outlook, but the fact that they are bringing their forecasts into line with the rest of the market around 2014 GDP growth for China, I think that's starting to probably help to weigh on sentiment a little bit further," Westpac currency strategist Jonathan Cavenagh said. From that perspective, it's very much a case of the market revisiting themes around slowing Chinese growth and better growth in some of the big major economies. Given the [Australian dollar] very close association with the China economic story, that's starting to feed into negative sentiment. The World Bank said it expected Chinese GDP to stay flat this year at 7.7 per cent before slowing to 7.5 per cent over the next few years, "reflecting deleveraging and less reliance on policy-induced investment." "The region is vulnerable to risks of disorderly unwinding in Chinese investment and abrupt tightening in global financing conditions," the World Bank added. Commodity exporters are also vulnerable to sharper than expected declines in commodity prices. The World Bank said it expected global growth to rise from 2.4 per cent last year to 3.2 per cent this year. Growth is then projected to stabilise at 3.4 per cent in 2015 and 3.5 per cent in 2016, "with much of the initial acceleration reflecting stronger growth in high-income economies." "Growth appears to be strengthening in both high-income and developing countries, but downside risks continue to threaten the global economic recovery," World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said in a statement. The performance of advanced economies is gaining momentum, and this should support stronger growth in developing countries in the months ahead.