Global trade will decline by about 9 percent in volume terms this year, the biggest contraction since World War II, the World Trade Organization said in a report on Monday.

The contraction in developed countries will be particularly severe with exports falling by 10 percent this year, according to the WTO's annual global trade assessment report.

In developing countries, which are far more dependent on trade for growth, exports will shrink by about 2 percent to 3 percent in 2009, WTO economists said in the report.

Although world trade grew by 2 percent in volume terms for the whole of 2008, it tapered off in the last six months and was well down from the 6-percent volume increase posted in 2007.

The World Bank said last week that since the beginning of the financial crisis, officials have proposed or implemented roughly 78 trade measures, according to the bank's monitoring list of trade and trade-related measures.

Of these, 66 involved trade restrictions, and 47 trade-restricting measures eventually took effect, it said.

"Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events such as those we saw in the 1930s, which made a bad situation much, much worse," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a statement.

WTO head Pascal Lamy on Thursday also warned that increasing restrictive trade measures could undermine efforts to revive the global economy.

"There have been increases in tariffs, new non-tariff measures and more resort to trade defense measures such as anti-dumping actions," Lamy said.

Economists said the financial crisis has yet to bottom out, and the real economy continues to slip as the global economic situation deteriorates.

Therefore, stimulus spending, market confidence, financial regulation and free trade will be key issues at the G20 summit of the world's leading developing and developed economies next week in London.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2009)