Global trade contracted by about 12 percent in 2009 but has started to pick up, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Wednesday.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said the Organization had revised its previous estimate of a contraction of about 10 percent in 2009 but gave no forecast for 2010.
« World trade has also been a casualty of this (global economic) crisis, contracting … by about 12 percent in 2009, » Lamy said during a visit to Brussels, calling it a huge drop and the sharpest decline since the end of World War Two.
Pascal LAMY 