WTO to Reduce Global Trade Growth Forecast on Slowdown

The World Trade Organization will scale back its forecast for global trade growth amid the economic slowdown, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said.

“World trade this year will go lower than we had forecast some six months ago,” Lamy said today at a press conference in Rome. The WTO, which in April projected growth of 3.7 percent, will probably lower the forecast next week, he said.

Growth has suffered this year amid the European debt crisis and a U.S. recovery hampered by unemployment that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke last month called a “grave concern.” Euro-area gross domestic product will drop 0.4 percent this year, the European Central Bank said on Sept. 6, compared with a previous forecast of 0.1 percent.

Lamy spoke to reporters with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net; Andrew Frye in Rome at afrye@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net; James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net