I never thought I would still be professionally employed, nor perhaps ever see a year where global gross domestic product appears to have declined, which it has done this year. This time a year ago, we expected 2009 to be weak – our forecast in December 2008 was for a tiny rise of 0.6%, against a consensus of 2%.

In the event, it looks like we will have declined by 0.6%. Let's hope this doesn't happen again.