International credit insurance and credit management services group Coface has claimed it expects its payment experience to soften from the second quarter this year.

Jérôme Cazes, chief executive of Coface, said: "Credit crisis means to Coface a dramatic deterioration of companies' payment behaviour: claims notifications raised to a monthly average 200 million euros since December 2008 against 61 million euros in 2007. Companies have massively cut their orders since the last quarter of 2008. The violence of the adjustment we see is in a way the result of globalisation: companies react rapidly and simultaneously across countries and sectors."

"According to Coface experience, credit crisis do not last more than two years. The strong corporates survive and the wave of non-payments will start to decelerate. World GDP could hit the bottom in the coming weeks."

Yves Zlotowski, chief economist at Coface, added: ""The credit crisis has not sparred emerging countries corporates, with the strong deceleration of activity expected. The growth of emerging economies will likely fall to 1.7% in 2009 with the recovery shaping up for 2010 likely to be sharper -- 4.5% -- than that expected in mature economies.

"For Emerging Asia, we believe that growth rebound will come sooner than later, provided external demand strengthens."