Washington, May 27 (DPA) A panel of top economists in the US forecast an end to the country’s deep recession by late 2009, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The National Association of Business Economists (NABE), which surveyed 45 economists, said the US economy had shown some signs of stabilising but would still recover more slowly than in past downturns.

The panel still expected the US economy to contract 1.8 percent in the second quarter, after a massive 6.1-percent contraction in the first three months of the year. But the survey predicted growth of 1.2 percent in the second half of the year.

“The good news is that the NABE panel expects economic growth to turn positive in the second half of this year, with the pace of job losses narrowing sharply over the remainder of this year and employment turning up in early 2010,” NABE’s president Chris Varvares said in a statement.