Kiev  - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Thursday predicted no improvement in the world financial markets until the latter half of 2009, the Interfax news agency reported.

Strauss-Kahn was speaking at a conference on international economics held in the Black Sea resort city Yalta.

"It is possible that in the second to third quarter of 2009 the process of improvement (of world financial markets) will begin," he said. "The main part of the crisis could by then be behind us."

World securities and commodities markets remain unstable, he added.

"We are somewhere between the crisis of a contraction and the flame of inflation," Strauss-Kahn said.

The IMF director singled out the US financial crisis and the world food price crisis, as key contributors to the "first true financial crisis of the 21st century."

He couched the guarded remarks in a call for increased cooperation between international securities agencies as well as governments, saying "the economic results of the crisis are (still) before us, and to solve them inter-bank cooperation will be insufficient." (dpa)