IT’S the time of year when a legion of experts are wheeled out to offer their forecasts for the year ahead. I am about to join their ranks, but I do so knowing that in all probability most attempts at crystal ball gazing will turn out to be wrong.

The first thing to do is to put aside the usual avalanche of economic data that stock market analysts and economists tend to crunch before making their predictions. Nor should we pay too much attention to the fact that Uranus and Jupiter are in alignment and that yesterday morning, the start of the working year, was greeted with a partial eclipse of the sun!

Even less should we take notice of the recent surge in stock market prices in London. That’s because the FTSE-100, Britain’s principal stock market index, includes many companies that earn the majority of their profit from overseas activities. It is therefore not necessarily a reflection of analysts’ expectations for the British economy, as it might have been in the past.

Instead, we should focus on the real politics and the market forces, which are virtually akin to forces of nature, at play in the world economy at the moment.

Top of the list is the apparently unstoppable rise of countries like Brazil, India and China. Whatever happens to Portugal, Greece and Ireland in the next 12 months, these fast-growing and populous Latin American economies will power ahead, driven by the advantages of low-cost bases, burgeoning consumer markets, low levels of regulation and taxation, together with the opportunity for entrepreneurs to make excellent rates of return on investments.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States will also shift up a gear and grow strongly during 2011. In fact, the only significant economic region of the world likely to suffer lacklustre performance is Europe, in particular Western Europe. Eurozone tensions are likely to hold economic growth back in this part of the world and even have the potential to cause the fragmentation of the single currency as some nations revert to their traditional coinage.

The UK will find itself caught in the middle. Our exporters may well benefit from improving markets in other parts of the world, but Europe’s woes will cause some anxiety.

Should the UK prove resilient and exhibit strong growth, most of this will happen, as always, in the South-East. Other parts of the country will continue to struggle pretty much come what may.

Take Middlesbrough, for example. Teesside’s private sector has suffered greatly as a result of cutbacks to its traditional bulk chemicals industry, which has lost out to competition from cheap labour markets elsewhere. It is unlikely, therefore, that Teesside’s private sector will be able to make good jobs lost as the public sector cuts bite during 2011.

Here on Merseyside, we continue to experience significant economic weaknesses. Our per capita GDP is still one of the lowest of any sub-region in Britain. As a result, we are more likely to see unemployment rising than falling during 2011.

The big political reality that remains a hugely uncertain factor is the inherent weakness of the Coalition.

The longevity of the current government depends on the outcome of May’s referendum on voting reform. If voting reform is rejected, the Liberal Democrats will have no reason to remain in government, throwing Britain’s political future into doubt in the second half of the year. That, in turn, will have big consequences for the country’s economic recovery.