PROVIDENCE — The current economic downturn in the United States may extend until the spring of 2009, according to Ellen Alemany, chief executive officer of RBS Americas and Citizens Financial Group.

In a speech at last night’s Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce annual meeting, Alemany said, “By almost all accounts, we’re in a recession.”

The downturn, which probably began in January, “is likely to be the longest and most severe since the early 1980s,” Alemany said.

Businesses are cutting spending. Consumers are cutting their spending for the first time since 1991 — and at the sharpest pace since 1980, she said.

The demand for housing has fallen, “and we may not see the bottom of the housing market before mid-2009,” Alemany said. She also forecast that real gross domestic product — which is essentially the value of all goods and services produced in the nation — will fall at an average, annualized rate of between 2.5 percent and 3 percent in the next two quarters before turning positive again.

Alemany was the keynote speaker at last night’s meeting, which is one of the business community’s largest gatherings of the year. About 750 business leaders and others attended the event, held at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

Despite the economy’s grim outlook, at least in the short-term, Alemany indicated that she remains guardedly optimistic.

“Without question, the economic crisis we’re in is stunning,” she said. Nevertheless, she said she views the crisis as an opportunity, a chance to correct “fundamental flaws while reinforcing the incredible strengths of our system.”

Alemany said there are many causes of the current financial crisis, including too much easy credit, lowered lending standards and lax regulation.

In response, she said, the nation needs the following:

•Strong regulators.

•A re-engineering of the regulatory system.

•Greater transparency for institutional and individual investors.

•Re-establishing America’s markets as a place for trust and opportunity, especially because markets in the future will be more global and more competitive.

Rhode Island’s banking community can contribute to restoring the state’s economy by lending money and making credit available “while preserving high standards and great integrity,” she said.

Increasing capital and credit can help create jobs, build stronger communities, give businesses the means to expand, and grow a strong tax base, she said.

Alemany also said that the nation is investing in sustainable, alternative sources of energy, and sustainable energy “will be one of the great growth industries of the 21st century.”

Alemany, a former Citigroup executive, is chief executive officer of RBS Americas, a new organizational unit at the Royal Bank of Scotland that oversees all of the bank’s U.S.-based divisions.

She is also CEO of Citizens Financial Group, which is based in Providence and is one of the nation’s 10 largest commercial banking companies ranked by assets and deposits.

Alemany took over at Citizens in March; her speech last night represented her formal introduction to Rhode Island’s business community.

During her presentation, Alemany offered a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes efforts involved in the nation’s financial crisis.

She was in Hartford, Conn., on Sept. 12, she said. Just after completing a string of “town hall” meetings across New England with Citizens Bank employees, she received a phone call from the Federal Reserve Board, asking her to travel to New York City for an urgent meeting.

“When I walked in, I found my fellow CEOs of leading U.S. financial institutions,” and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. “was telling everybody that Lehman [Brothers Holdings] was at a crisis point, and that he needed our help to find a solution,” Alemany recalled.

“It was a long weekend and perhaps a historic one,” she said. “And if it wasn’t for RBS, Citizens — and Rhode Island — might not have had a seat at that table,” Alemany said.

“Our presence that weekend reflects a recognition of who we are and what we have to offer, and it was a privilege to be there,” she said.

Alemany also urged those assembled at last night’s meeting to keep in mind that they have survived other crises and will survive this one, too.

“If there is one thing I want all of us to take away, it is this: Trust that we will get through this crisis, and trust each other. We are in this together. We are connected. We work in the same world, in the same community, and sometimes even on the same street,” she said.

“We are partners in progress. Help a business in need if you can [and], equally important, don’t give up on your own. We can survive and we can be even stronger,” she said.

ndowning@projo.com