Brussels – Global merchandise trade fell by a record amount in the first months of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but stopped short of a worst-case scenario, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Tuesday (23). The body had forecast in April that global trade in goods would fall by 13-32% in 2020, before rebounding by 21-24% in 2021.
In fact, the volume of merchandise trade in fact shrank by 3% in the first quarter, the WTO said, and initial estimates pointed to a year-on-year decline of 18.5% for the second quarter. “The fall in trade we are now seeing is historically large – in fact, it would be the steepest on record. But there is an important silver lining here: It could have been much worse,” WTO director‑general Roberto Azevedo (pictured above) said.
The WTO said governments reacted quicker than in the 2008-2009 crisis and income encouraged consumers to keep spending. Some sectors such as automobiles fell sharply, but others such as electronics have held up well. If trade grows by 2.5% per quarter for the rest of the year, the more optimistic projection of minus 13% could be met, though that would still be worse than at the height of the financial crisis in 2009, when trade dropped by 12.5%.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
