Global economic crisis far from over: UN trade body

Predicting a gloomy economic future, a top United Nations trade and development agency said on Wednesday that the governments still have a long way to go to tide over the financial crisis.

"The outlook is bleak," United Nations conference on trade and development director of division on globalisation and development strategies, Heiner Flassbeck told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York after releasing a report.

The world is still mired in a deep economic crisis and not much has been achieved in regulating the financial markets, Flassbeck said.

The real questions in that regard had not even been recognised, but thanks to the good reactions of some governments, the economy had stabilised somewhat and the decline had bottomed out. However, the perspective for growth was lacking, he noted.

Flassbeck said on the global level, private sector demand could only grow through consumption and investment, but rising unemployment and depressed wages depressed growth in consumption.

"Because capacity utilisation is 10 to 15 per cent below normal, there is no demand for new investments, and profits had in turn declined due to falling demand, he said urging governments to continue to stimulate the economy, stressing that talk of an 'early exit strategy' was premature."