THE global recession is coming to an end faster than thought just a few months ago and may already be over, according to forecasts published yesterday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

"Compared with expectations a few months ago, we now have a recovery which may be coming a little earlier and it may be slightly stronger because financial conditions have improved more rapidly than we assumed a few months ago," OECD chief economist Jorgen Elmeskov said.

The OECD forecasts show a third-quarter return to expansion of economic output, as measured by gross domestic product, in the United States and the 16-country euro zone.

The forecasts showed an annualized expansion of 1.6 percent in the US in the third quarter, 0.3 percent in the euro zone and 1.1 percent in Japan, and were generally more optimistic than the last update in June.

The pickup that started with a "quite dramatic turnaround" in China and other Asian emerging market economies in the second quarter remained heavily dependent on government stimuli and ultra-low interest rates across the world, Elmeskov said.

The OECD's 30 member countries do not include rising powers, such as China, but do include the long-industrialized ones where the trouble began in 2007 as the credit and housing boom in the US turned to bust and led to the global financial crisis.

While it predicted continued third-quarter contractions in Britain and Italy, and a rise followed by a fourth-quarter dip for Japan, the OECD said the broad picture for the G7 group of industrialized powers was better.

The forecasts, including information by Wednesday, show the euro area turning positive in both of the last two quarters of 2009 after five straight quarters of contraction.

In June, it predicted quarter-on-quarter shrinkage of 1.1 and 0.5 percent respectively in the third and fourth quarters on an annualized basis in the euro area. It now expects 2 percent growth in the fourth quarter. The previous forecasts for the US had been 0 and 0.5 percent - now upped to 1.6 percent and 2.4 percent respectively.

Elmeskov said the OECD also said the 16 percent drop in global trade volume it predicted for this year in June would probably be less steep, due in part to rising import demand from Asia for goods from OECD countries.

"Our estimates suggest that in the second quarter China may have grown at 14 percent annualized rate," Elmeskov said. "Similarly, the growth rates of other non-OECD East Asia and Southeast Asian countries may on average have been around 10 percent on an annualized rate."