WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- The global economy and international trade will shrink in 2009 for the first time since World War II, World Bank officials in Washington said Sunday.
In a report prepared in advance of next week's meeting in London of the G20 nations, the World Bank said the global financial crisis -- touched off by a wave of mortgage failures in the United States -- was affecting poor nations that had no involvement in the downturn's origin, The New York Times reported. Latin American, African and European nations are dealing with stunted economic growth as well as limited availability of credit, the report said.