World in grip of 'Great Recession', IMF warns

The world is now in the grip of the "great recesssion" and global economic growth could dip below zero for the first time in sixty years, said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF.

AFP
Last Updated: 10:44PM GMT 10 Mar 2009


'The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes,' said Mr Strauss-Kahn Photo: REUTERS

Mr Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, made the comments at the opening of a conference in Tanzania on the impact of the world financial crisis on Africa on Tuesday.

He said: "The global financial crisis, that might now be called the great recession, provides a sobering backdrop to our conference. The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes,"

IMF may run out of cash to fight crisis in six months, Strauss-Khan warns
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"When we release our next package of forecasts at the spring session, that is to say in April, everything leads us to believe that it will indeed reveal a negative global growth for the first time in 60 years," he said

It is the first time that the IMF chief had predicted an actual global contraction. Last month he said the IMF expected zero growth in 2009 and the month before that the fund released data including a 0.5pc global growth forecast.

He said last week he saw no chance of a global recovery before 2010.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... warns.html