Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaks druing a news conferece at IMF headquarters in Washington, on April 23, 2009. Strauss-Kahn said on Thursday that the global economic crisis still had "long months" to go before it finished. (Xinhua/Zhang Yan)

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned on Thursday that the global economic crisis is far from over.

"Despite some red lights and green lights ... our belief is that the crisis is far from over," the IMF chief said at a news conference on the ever of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

The IMF on Wednesday warned that the global economy was in "a severe recession" and the world output is projected to decline 1.3percent this year, the deepest global recession since the Great Depression in 1930s.

"The good news is we still believe the recovery can take place in the first semester of 2010," Strauss-Kahn said.

The United States, at the center of an intensifying global financial storm, will contract by 2.8 percent this year, according to the IMF.

But Strauss-Kahn noted that the U.S. may recover first. "The beginning of the recovery has to come from the United States, and will come from the United States," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2009)