Bankers see recession, firms yet to feel slump

Bankers meeting at the Swiss ski resort of Davos said there are increasing risks of a global recession, while manufacturers countered that they have yet to feel it in their business.

Financiers tramped through the snow, glued to their Blackberries, as news broke of an emergency interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve and Societe Generale SA's record loss at the hands of a rogue trader.

Industrialists took comfort from the prospect of further rate cuts, demand from oil producers and the likelihood of continued "" albeit slower "" growth in China.

"There's a split between those who are in finance and those who are in more general industries," Daniel Yergin, chairman of Massachusetts-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates Inc, said in an interview.

"The buildup of these very large financial surpluses in the energy exporters and the Asian manufacturing exporters has coincided with this crisis."

Predictions of a US recession, and whether the rest of the world will follow, was the main debate as 2,500 executives, officials and investors gathered 1,560 meters above sea level for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.

Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co project the US will this year suffer its first recession since 2001.

Michael Dell, chief executive officer of Dell Inc, the world's second-largest maker of personal computers, said there's no reason "to get in a panic".

"There is some economic downturn, but I would not move to put it in the recession category," Alan Boeckmann, CEO of Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. West Asia is providing more oil and gas contracts, and mining projects are strong in Asia and South America, he said.

Even if the US does sneeze, "that doesn't mean the whole world will catch a cold", Juergen Hambrecht, CEO of BASF AG, the world's largest chemical maker, said in an interview.