World Bank: oil price may boost world economic growth by 15-20%

Plunging oil prices may boost world economic growth by 15-20 percent in 2015, however, several countries will still lose out, the chief of the World Bank said on Thursday.

"There are winners and losers in the oil price shift," Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, told CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The World Bank head said that historical assessments suggested that a 30 percent decline in oil prices-as projected for 2015-could be associated with an increase in the size of the global economy by around 0.5 percent.

The World Bank predicted that the world economy would expand by 2.6 percent in 2014 before growing by 3.0 percent in 2015 and 3.3 percent in 2016. This growth would be due to low oil prices, as well as continued recovery in the U.S., a gradual improvement in the euro area and receding domestic headwinds in slower-growing developing countries.

"Our projection is around 3 percent, so you could see a 15-20 percent increase in growth if those oil prices stay low," said Kim, who is co-chair of this year's World Economic Forum.

A sustained low oil price would also see income shift from oil-exporting countries to oil-importing countries, Kim said, with countries on several continents likely to lose out.

"We are really concerned about Venezuela, and when you talk about Venezuela, it is not just Venezuela, it is all the countries they have been supplying oil to at very low prices-Cuba, Haiti, Honduras," he said. Africa's oil-exporting hub of Nigeria would also be a "loser".

India was expected to be a strong beneficiary of low oil prices, however, with its economic growth forecast to top 7 percent in the medium-term.

Kim also commented: "Will some of the marginal producers get out of the game? Will some of the Middle Eastern producer, Iran, Syria get back in the game? I do not think anyone knows."