World Bank: Global economy to dive

The global economy is set to shrink by one to two per cent this year, Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president has said.Zoellick's comments, made at a conference in Brussels on Saturday, referred to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that the world economy would shrink by one per cent this year. "We in the Bank will be coming up with ours again soon, probably in the range of one to two per cent ... We haven't seen a figure like that globally since World War Two, which really means since the Great Depression," he said. The World Bank chief has raised concerns over existing efforts to tackle the crisis, warning of the risk of doing "too little, too late". He said that fiscal stimulus without addressing the roots of the credit crunch will be a mere "sugar high" with no lasting impact on the economy.