WASHINGTON — In one of the bleakest assessments yet, economists at the World Bank predicted on Sunday that the global economy and the volume of global trade would both shrink this year for the first time since World War II.
The World Bank said in a new report that the crisis that began with junk mortgages in the United States was causing havoc for poorer countries that had nothing to do with the original problem.
As a result, it said, nations in Latin America, Africa and East Asia have had not only their growth stifled but their access to credit as well.
The bank’s assessment for 2009 was grimmer than those of most private forecasters. It did not provide a specific estimate, but bank officials said its economists would be publishing one in the next several weeks.
Even extremely pessimistic forecasters have predicted that the global economy would eke out a tiny expansion, on continuing if slowed growth outside the United States and Europe. In late January, the International Monetary Fund reduced its estimate for global growth this year to just 0.5 percent, the lowest level in more than 60 years.
Read the full articla by Edmund Andrews at NYTimes here.
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