World trade falls by 12% last year
BRUSSELS. February 24. KAZINFORM World trade fell by 12 percent last year amid the economic crisis, the worst decline in more than six decades, the World Trade Organization (WTO) chief said on Wednesday; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
"World trade was reduced by 12 percent in 2009," Pascal Lamy said at a breakfast policy briefing hosted by the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, adding it was the "sharpest decline" since the end of the Second World War.
The WTO had forecast global trade declined by more than ten percent in 2009 as the financial and economic crisis hit worldwide demand.
The International Monetary Fund said in January that global trade contracted by 12.3 percent in 2009 and is forecast to expand 5.8 percent this year.
Lamy said the worst contraction in more than 60 years made it "economically imperative to conclude" the Doha Round of global trade talks, which started in 2001 and remained deadlocked after nine years of negotiations due to lingering disagreements between developed and developing countries on market access for agricultural and industrial goods; Kazinform cites Xinhua.
See www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/ for full version