Countries must act now to keep slowing population growth from wreaking havoc on their long-term economic prospects, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in an annual report on Tuesday.

The report said ageing populations have already begun to hinder economic growth in some nations - and that in emerging Europe, the drop in the share of working-age people is projected to reduce annual per capita GDP growth by an average of almost 0.4 percentage points a year between 2024 and 2050.

“Already today, demography is eroding growth in living standards, and it is going to be a headwind for GDP growth in the future,” EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik told Reuters.

Post-communist nations, she said, “are getting old before getting rich,” with the median age hitting 37 at a time when the average GDP per capita stands at $10,000. That was a quarter of the amount recorded when the median age hit that level in advanced economies in the 1990s.