Global recession will hit commodities: Saudi cbanker

ATHENS (Reuters) - The global economy seems to be heading for a recession and commodity-producing countries will be hit worse than most, Saudi Arabia's deputy central bank governor Muhammad Al-Jasser said on Monday.

"A global recession of some sort seems to be on the way," he said in a speech at the Bank of Greece in Athens. "Commodity-based countries will be worse off than most others."

Fears of a global economic downturn have already slashed oil prices by more than half from their highs of over $140 a barrel earlier this year. Crude was trading around $68 a barrel on Monday, recovering from last week's lows.

Members of the OPEC oil producers group agreed last month to reduce output by 1.5 million barrels a day, or 5 percent, from November 1 in an effort to shore up prices.

Al-Jasser said the present financial crisis became global much quicker than previous episodes, due to abuses by investment banks which were excessively leveraged.

An ensuing regulatory clampdown will have ramifications for lightly-regulated financial activities.

"Excessive deregulation invites excessive risk-taking," he said. "I think we are well into the financial crisis, central banks have come up to the task, adding liquidity. Measures taken should cushion the global economy."

Responding to questions, Al-Jasser said the volatility in oil prices this year was unprecedented, exacerbated by speculators.

"We have never seen oil this volatile as it has been this year. Speculators exacerbate the volatility of oil prices, they exacerbated the volatility upwards and now exacerbate the volatility downward," he said.

(Writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by David Stamp and Victoria Main)