World trade hit by biggest drop since WWII in 2009: WTO

BRUSSELS: World trade fell by 12 per cent last year as the economic crisis caused the biggest drop since 1945, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said on Wednesday.

"World trade was reduced by 12 percent in 2009," Lamy told the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think tank.

He said it was the "sharpest decline" since the end of the World War II.

The drop was worse than the 10 per cent fall that the WTO had forecast in December.