which have rattled financial markets and severely eroded the value of the euro in recent months,
remain a significant threat to world trade.
In its latest report on global economic prospects for 2010, released on Thursday,
the World Bank cautioned that Europe’s debt crisis had “created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth.”
Although the impact of the debt crisis has so far been contained, the World Bank said,
“prolonged rising sovereign debt could make credit more expensive and curtail investment and growth in developing countries.”
“Regardless of how the debt situation in high-income Europe evolves, a second round financial crisis cannot be ruled out in certain countries of developing Europe and Central Asia,
where rising non-performing loans, due to slow recovery and significant levels of short-term debt, may threaten banking-sector solvency,” the institution noted.
In the interim, Chinese exports in May jumped 48.5 percent from the same period last year, the country’s customs agency reported Thursday, according to this article in the New York Times.
Imports rose 48.3 percent from a year earlier, as domestic demand for raw materials and other goods was buoyed
by a massive government spending program and a flood of easy credit from state-owned lenders.