The global economy will contract this year by 0.5 percent due largely to a plunge in world trade, and Japan and Italy will likely be worst hit among the G7 economies, a think tank said yesterday.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said in its latest forecast that the global economy “will suffer its worst reverse for more than 60 years” as world trade falls by 8.2 percent this year.
“The recession is expected to last for six or seven quarters in the US, Euro Area and Japan, with a significant risk of a more prolonged recession lasting eight or nine quarters,” it said.
However, its prediction is less alarming than the IMF’s forecast that the global economy would contract 1.3 percent this year.
NIESR said the downturn would have been worse had governments worldwide not take action to stem the financial crisis, except in Italy “where fiscal stimulus has been minimal.”
“Without monetary and fiscal easing introduced since 2008, output would have been expected to decline by an additional 1.5 percentage points in the US this year, and by 1 to 1.2 percentage points in Japan and the Euro Area,” it said.
Japan, which has suffered from a huge decline in exports, is likely to see a 6.2 percent fall in GDP this year, while Italy will suffer the most prolonged reverse of the big eurozone economies, with output declining by 1 percent, 3.3 percent and 1.2 percent between last year and next year, NIESR said.
The report predicted global recovery to start later this year, but forecast the world economy would only grow by 2.1 percent next year and growth for most major economies “will be feeble” in 2011.
Its predictions for the UK were bleak, saying GDP was on track to fall by 4.3 percent this year.
“There is a real possibility that GDP will fall more this year than in 1931. The pace of decline to date shows a remarkable resemblance to that of the depression of the early 1930s, though that similarity should be broken as a feeble recovery gets under way in the final quarter of this year,” it said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
RSS