The chief executive of Caterpillar Inc on Tuesday forecast a 3.4-percent increase in U.S. and global GDP in 2010, a forecast that is slightly higher than recent consensus estimates.

Jim Owens, head of the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, also warned of risks posed by continuing economic problems in the world's highly developed economies.

"The base case calls for relatively sluggish economic recovery in the United States, Europe and Japan and a pretty robust recovery across most of the high-growth, emerging markets of the world," Owens told a National Association for Business Economics conference.

The February Blue Chip survey of top economists by The Blue Chip Economics Indicators group, showed they expected 2010 GDP growth of 3 percent. That was 0.2 percentage points higher than their prediction in January's poll.

Owens also predicted the growth in emerging markets would have a "huge impact" on driving commodity prices.

"There's kind of a virtuous circle of higher commodity prices helping other emerging markets, because most of the commodities in this global economy come from the emerging market theater," he said.

He highlighted China, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, among others, as key emerging markets.

In January, Caterpillar forecasted 2010 earnings below the average Wall Street estimate.

The outlook from the bellwether company, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, came as it posted stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings and said it was seeing encouraging signs that economies around the world were rebounding from the recession.

In his speech, Owens, who has a Ph.D. in economics, said that Caterpillar's "base case scenario" for the economy was "for a pretty solid recovery over the next three or four years."

"Today, if you look around the world, (there's) very low inflation, a lot of idle capacity that can be brought back on line, very low interest rates... and really unprecedented fiscal stimulus on a global scale," he said.

Emerging markets had very high infrastructure needs, he said, and mass urbanization, particularly in China, would give rise to "a huge increase in the middle class, which we think is driving investment and commodities -- kind of the sweet spot of their investment cycle."

But Owens also said there was "an uncommonly high risk" of a very sluggish recovery if central banks implemented exit strategies too quickly, resulting in tighter credit; if housing and commercial property prices continued to decline, and if commodity prices spiraled downward.