ABSTRACT
As the work on this study neared its end, the global economic environment significantly deteriorated. Starting in the later part of 2007 and continuing onwards, the world has been engulfed in a financial crisis that has, by now, transformed into a global economic recession. Despite the late 2009 and early 2010 sparks of positive trends in the developed world and some emerging markets, things remain to be uncertain throughout the palette. The impacts on the real sector have been ruinous to both advanced and developing economies. In one of its numerous updates at the time, the International Monetary Fund predicted a global economic halt, with the world economy growing in 2009 at 0.5 per cent. 1 The worst economic downturn in sixty years was set to cost fifty million global jobs in 2009 (Guha et al., 2009).
