CNN) -- Worldwide trade will plummet by nearly 10 percent this year, and output will fall by 2.9 percent, the World Bank predicted in a report released Monday.Developing counties will be hit hard by falls in private investment, the Washington-based agency predicted, seeing nearly $1 trillion less in foreign investment this year than they did two years ago.
That could leave developing countries hundreds of millions of dollars short of the money they need to finance their foreign obligations, the bank warned.
"Developing countries are likely to face a dismal external financing climate in 2009," the bank said in a statement accompanying the release of it annual Global Development Finance report.
In 2007, poor countries took in $1.2 trillion in foreign investment. This year the figure is likely to be $363 billion -- less than a third of the record 2007 amount, and just over half last year's total of $707 billion.
Industrial production has fallen sharply in the past year, as companies worry that people will not have the money to buy their wares.
