‘Tough economic times ahead’

Thursday 16th September 2010, 2:30PM BST.

The expert panel at the CISX International Business Summit, left to right, Maya Bhandari, Roger Bootle, Angela Knight, Paul Mortimer-Lee and moderator Anthony Hilton, the financial editor of the Evening Standard. (1026185)

ECONOMIC prospects for the Western world are ‘gloomy’, according to a panel of experts at the Channel Islands Stock Exchange International Business Summit.

The speakers forecasted years of economic pain ahead for people living in the advanced world when they addressed an audience of financial professionals at the Hotel de France in Jersey last week. It was the second event of its kind the CISX has held, following on from the inaugural summit in Guernsey last year.

All four agreed that there were some very tough times ahead for the European continent in particular.

Maya Bhandari, senior economist at Lombard Street Research, said that the current economic recovery was likely to falter soon.