2009: World economy in big trouble

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-16 16:54

Battling the worst financial crisis in nearly 70 years, the world economy will brake sharply in 2009, with the United States, Western Europe and Japan in recession. Developing economies in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will experience curtailed growth due to plunging commodity prices and a world trade contraction, but likely will escape the red ink.

Evidence of the global slide is still mounting. Manufacturers around the world are under severe strain and laying off hundreds of thousands of workers; banks are failing, triggering a severe credit crunch; home foreclosures are skyrocketing; and auto sales are plummeting, which could push some carmakers into bankruptcy. As a result, consumer confidence and spending have slumped, and business investment is drying up.

"Looking at where we are today, the good news, if any, is that we have probably stepped back from the brink of financial catastrophe," said Olivier Blanchard, chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.

Conditions have deteriorated so much since the IMF's semiannual World Economic Outlook was released in October that it issued an update last month cutting its 2009 forecast for developed countries' economies to a drop of 0.3 percent, from 0.5 percent growth in the previous estimate. Such a decline would mark the first contraction in any year since World War II.

Overall, the IMF now expects the world economy to grow at a 2.2 percent pace in 2009, down from its October projection of 3 percent. Developing economies are projected to see GDP growth rate at 5 percent, despite diving commodity prices that have hit oil exporters especially hard.

Meanwhile, the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects report issued last week predicts that global GDP growth will slip from 2.5 percent in 2008 to 0.9 percent in 2009. Developing countries' growth is expected to decline from 7.9 percent in 2008 to 4.5 percent in 2009. It said the global economy is shifting from "a long period of strong growth" led by developing countries to a time of "great uncertainty."

"The slowdown in developing countries is very significant because the credit squeeze directly hits investments, which were a key pillar supporting the strong performance of the developing world during the past five years," said Hans Timmer, a senior World Bank economist.

The bank now predicts that world trade, an engine of growth for many developing economies, will contract by 2.1 percent in 2009, marking the first time since 1982 that trade will shrink.

The report also said the commodities boom of the past five years, which drove up prices 130 percent, has come to an end.

Oil prices are likely to average about $75 a barrel in 2009. The price of crude has fallen about 70 percent due to the sharp economic downturn since it peaked at $147.27 a barrel in July.

In its latest economic outlook, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said economic output will shrink by 0.3 percent in 2009 for the 30 market democracies that make up its membership, against the 1.4 percent growth prediction for 2008.

The Paris-based organization said the United States was expected to contract by 0.9 percent in 2009 following a 1.4 percent expansion in 2008. Japanese output is projected to contract by 0.1 percent next year, following 0.5 percent growth this year, while the 15-nation euro-zone will likely shrink by 0.6 percent in 2009, after 1.0 percent growth this year.

"Many OECD economies are in, or are on the verge of, a protracted recession of a magnitude not experienced since the early 1980s," OECD Chief Economist Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel warned. "As a result, the number of unemployed in the OECD area could rise by 8 million over the next two years."

But few things are definite.

"Uncertainties surrounding the projections are exceptionally large," Schmidt-Hebbel said. "Much will depend on how quickly the financial crisis, the main driver of the downturn, is overcome."

Among the risks are financial institutions suffering further failures and emerging market economies being hit harder by the downturn in global trade. Positive developments would include central banks shoring up their finances and governments adopting more substantial fiscal stimulus measures, such as higher spending and lower taxes, economists said.

In the United States, a huge decline in wholesale inventories of durable and nondurable goods and in sales provided further evidence that the economy is in a steep recession. In November, American shoppers handed retail stores their worst results in at least 39 years.

Many analysts believe the current recession, which has already lasted 12 months, will drag until at least the middle of next year. If it lasts past April, it will become the longest recession in the post World War II period, surpassing recessions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s that each lasted 16 months.

As the US is sinking deeper into economic despair, analysts predict more grim news in the months ahead. Employers cut payrolls in November at the fastest pace in 34 years as the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, the highest level since 1993.

The month's 553,000 drop in jobs brought cumulative losses in 2008 to nearly 2 million, the US Labor Department said, and the total number of unemployed Americans increased to 10.3 million. Some analysts predict that 3 million more jobs will be lost before spring 2010 and that the once-humming US economy could stagger backward at a shocking 6 percent rate in 2008's fourth quarter.

"It's a mess," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Businesses, battening down the hatches, are concerned about their survival and are cutting workers."

"The economy is in a free fall," said Richard Yamarone of Argus Research. "It is as if someone flicked off the switch on hiring."

US automakers have been particularly hard hit, with sales dropping to the lowest level in 26 years. The top executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have appealed to Congress for as much as $34 billion in government assistance, saying the alternative was bankruptcy that could lead to the loss of about 3 million jobs. The White House is exploring new ways to help Detroit's big three after the Senate last week rejected a $14 billion bailout.

To battle the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, US President-elect Barack Obama is working on a fiscal stimulus package of at least $500 billion. Obama has promised to make the "single largest new investment" in big public works projects as part of his plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs.

As uncertainties on bank solvency and credit supply persist, the federal government has committed more than $7 trillion in its efforts to contain the deepening financial crisis, although there is widespread agreement it won't really spend anything close to that figure.

In other economic predictions for 2009:

-- The Paris-based International Energy Agency said last week that global oil demand will shrink this year for the first time since 1983. The IEA cut its global demand forecast for 2008 by 350,000 barrels a day to 85.8 million barrels a day, down 0.2 percent from 2007. The IEA also cut its forecast for global oil demand in 2009, saying it would increase by just 0.5 percent to 86.3 million barrels a day. The OPEC cartel, which accounts for about 40 percent of global crude supply, has signaled it plans to cut output quotas at a meeting on December 17 in Algeria.