Asia helps feeble West in global recovery: OECD

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Asia is leading the global economy out of the deepest downturn in decades but the recovery will be marred by high unemployment and huge government debt across the industrialised countries, the OECD said on Thursday.

Central banks and governments in major Western economies should prepare for a gradual upwards shift in ultra-low interest rates and for fiscal consolidation once recovery is stronger, but they will only need to move in late 2010 at the earliest given that inflation is so low, it said in its Economic Outlook.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development raised its global growth forecast for next year to 3.4% from the 2.3% it was predicting as recently as June, after an estimated contraction of 1.7% in 2009.

"We are looking at a scenario where disaster has been avoided but we're still looking at a scenario which involves slow growth and high unemployment," the OECD's chief economist, Jorgen Elmeskov, told Reuters television in an interview.

In the twice-yearly report, the OECD lowered its estimates of the scale of this year's recession and substantially raised most of its forecasts for growth in 2010, when it said the economy would remain dependent on government life-support.

US growth, measured by gross domestic product, should rise 2.5% in 2010 after a contraction of 2.5% in 2009, and rise a further 2.8% in 2011, the OECD said.

Euro zone GDP should rise 0.9% in 2010 and 1.7% in 2011 after a downturn of 4.0% in 2009, it said.

Japan could expect GDP growth of 1.8% in 2010 and 2.0% in 2011 after a drop of 5.3% in 2009, it said.

In June, the OECD was predicting growth of less than 1% in 2010 in all three regions and for the 30 OECD member countries as a whole. It now sees GDP growth of 1.9% in 2010 and 2.5% in 2011, after a contraction of 3.5% in 2009. For fuller table

The upturn in the major non-OECD economies, especially in Asia and particularly China, is now a well-established source of strength for the more feeble OECD recovery," said the OECD, whose only two Asian members are Japan and South Korea.

The OECD's global growth forecast includes emerging giants China, Brazil, India and Russia with the mostly industrialised economies of its own 30-country membership and in all covers some 80 % of world output.

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