In its latest Global Economic Outlook, Fitch Ratings predicts that the world's major advanced economies - US, UK, Euro area and Japan - will next year experience the steepest decline in GDP since World War II. In aggregate GDP growth in these countries is expected to be (minus) -0.8% in 2009, compared to an estimated 1.1% for 2008. Tighter credit conditions, consumer retrenchment and falling corporate investment are expected to combine to deliver an unusually synchronised downturn across the advanced economies.