“One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick said Friday in Istanbul ahead of annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“Recent forecasts show that China and India are helping to pull the global economy out of recession…. A multipolar economy less reliant on the US consumer will be a more stable world economy,” he added.

Consumer spending accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity in the United States — by far the world’s biggest economy — and experts say lower spending could have radical effects on the US’s world standing.