Each country is trying to get out of the current global recession by adopting stimulus measures, including the United States' $787 billion stimulus package and Japan's budgetary measures, which include ¥12 trillion in fiscal spending. But the prospects for the world economy are not bright.

The U.S. is suffering from a recession and credit crunch while Japan is seeing a sharp contraction of manufacturing with the layoffs of many workers, all of which casts a shadow over the global economy. In the last quarter of 2008, the U.S. gross domestic product decreased by an annualized 3.3 percent and that of Japan by an annualized 12.1 percent. The world's No. 1 and 2 economies, respectively, bear the heaviest responsibility for reviving the global economy.

Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said last week that global economic growth could be negative for the first time since the end of World Word II. He called the global downturn the "Great Recession."