UN report warns West of possible depression

The industrialized West could slide into a depression if interest rates stay high, export growth falls off, and businessmen lose hope for an expected recovery, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe said in its annual survey.

The commission's report is perhaps the bleakest so far from an official body, and it is the first to suggest the danger of recession turning into depression. ECE Executive Secretary Janez Stanovik stressed the survey did not conclude depression was inevitable. But economic decline could result if calls for increased investment were not followed, he said.