Economic slowdown continues
Wed, Dec 3 2008, 15:02 GMT
by Danske Research Team
Over the last couple of months it has become clear that the economic crisis had turned into a global recession. Furthermore, the crisis has spread to emerging markets with a vengeance, and commodity demand is not just slowing, but is currently falling compared to earlier this year. The short-term outlook for the global economy is very bleak. Over the last couple of days global PMIs have nose-dived: the indicators were a record low in November in countries such as UK, Germany, Japan and China. In the US the ISM has dropped to the weakest level since 1982. Overall, the data releases point to an unprecedented drop in manufacturing activity in Q4. In light of the weak outlook, we published our new global growth forecasts in Global Scenarios last week. Basically, we forecast that in the coming three to six months the major economies are expected to continue to contract as the negative impact from the credit crisis, a further deepening of the housing slowdown, a backlash in emerging markets, and the negative recession dynamics, already in train, dominate.
