World Bank President Robert Zoellick has predicted that the U.S. economy will likely move along with slow growth and high unemployment but avoid a recession.
Zoellick said the challenges facing Europe are more "imminent" than those in the United States.
"I don't believe that the United States and the world will go into a double-dip [recession]," Zoellick said, "but there's high degrees of uncertainty, and I think that in the case of the U.S. economy that we're likely to see an ongoing slow growth, ongoing high unemployment; but the reason that I and others, [IMF chief] Christine Lagarde, have been highlighting the events in the eurozone is that these can have ripple effects all around the world."
Zoellick told reporters in Singapore that Europe's debt crisis threatens to undermine the confidence of consumers and investors.
He said European countries may need to deepen fiscal integration - implying governments should sacrifice some control over their budgets so spending policies can be coordinated among countries using the euro.
compiled from agency reports