For many years the Prognos World Report has served decision-makers in both the public and private sectors as a reliable basis for planning the future. In a fast-changing environment sound forecasts are indispensable for solid and well-founded strategic decisions, especially in view of their irreversible long-term effects.

The new Prognos World Report anticipates that the current crisis will slowly wind down beginning in the second half of 2009. The consequences of the crisis will be remarkable, especially in the U.S. and in countries with a high dependency on external demand, such as Germany, China, and Japan. The crisis was provoked by the collapse of real estate prices, but the threat for national economies in overall terms will arise from the tightening of credit standards and credit accessibility – as credit is the grease that keeps the world’s economic wheels turning. According to our forecasts, global GDP will contract by -1.0% this year, whereas the industrial countries will see a much deeper downturn of -3.1%. For the industrial countries as a whole, it will take until 2012 for GDP to rise back up to 2008 levels.

In the long run up to 2025, the World Report anticipates a growth of world GDP of 2.6% p.a. More and more of this expansion will be contributed by the emerging and newly industrialised countries, especially those in Asia. Correspondingly, the share contributed by the “old” industrial countries (i.e., the Report countries) to world GDP will decline by 12 percentage points down to 56% between 2009 and 2025. Asia, on the other hand, will see a gain of 10 percentage points to reach 30% of world GDP in the long term.