LONDON (AFX) - Worldwide GDP is expected to fall by 2.2 pct next year as a result of the attacks on the US on September 11, while UK GDP is predicted to drop by 1.2 pct, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in a report. Projections for worldwide GDP for 2002 have been cut by 466.71 bln usd, the report said. "The predictions we made three months ago were already more pessimistic than those of most economic analysts, and had the terrible events not happened we would have left the numbers more or less unchanged," report author Douglas McWilliams said. "Although the outlook is highly uncertain, we are clear that in the short term the world economy has been dealt a blow which will depress world growth for at least the next nine months and possibly for longer." McWilliams said the projections are based on three factors -- that there are no further terrorist attacks, that expected reprisals by the US do "not destabilise the world economy further", and public spending in the US is increased. "Clearly the outcomes could be much worse than this. But we have had to choose a set of base assumptions and these look as likely as any," he told BBC television late yesterday.