SEOUL: Global trade this year is likely to fall by an "unprecedented" figure of more than 10 percent, the head of the World Trade Organisation said Monday.

Pascal Lamy said governments have made progress in tackling the worst downturn for decades but much remains to be done.

"In February this year, the global economic downturn was peaking," the WTO director general told a forum in the South Korean capital.

"Less than a year on, progress has been made but we are not yet out of the woods."

Future write-downs in the world financial system have now been cut to about three trillion dollars, he said, citing an estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

"The clean-up process has reached the half-way mark but this progress is still too slow," Lamy said.