Italy's gross domestic product (GDP) this year is currently on track to fall by 4.2 percent, according to a revised forecast from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The organization said the forecast could be revised again at the end of March. The revised number shows that the country will be hit hard by the global economic crisis.

Earlier this month the OECD said the situation in Italy this year and the next was "much worse" than it had previously forecast, and that Italy would not come out of its recession until "sometime " in 2010.

The OECD's previous forecast said that Italy will see its GDP fall this year by one percent and then by 0.8 percent in 2010.

Earlier this month, the Bank of Italy also changed its forecast, predicting that the country's GDP this year would fall by as much as 2.6 percent.

In January the International Monetary Fund revised its forecast for Italy, saying the country's GDP would fall by 2.1 percent, compared with its previous forecast of 0.2 percent. The IMF also forecast that the Italian economy will retreat a further 0.1 percent in 2010, as against its initial prediction of a 0.3- percent rise.

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2009)