Global trade to grow by 9.5 per cent in 2010

World trade is expected to grow by 9.5 per cent in 2010, after suffering its biggest collapse since World War II in 2009, the head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Pascal Lamy said on Friday.

"Our economists are forecasting a world trade growth for 2010 of 9.5 per cent with developing countries' trade growing 11 per cent and industrialised countries' trade growing by 7.5 percent," the WTO director-general said.

"This means that trade-wise, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's certainly a good forecast, good news for the world economy," he added.

World trade plunged 12 per cent in 2009 due to the global economic crisis. AFP