The growth rate of world trade will be reduced to 1.7% this year, compared to the expansion of 2.7% in 2022, weighed down by the impact that the war in Ukraine continues to have, inflation and the turmoil in financial markets, according to estimates announced this Wednesday by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The evolution of trade between countries will be slow despite the fact that GDP forecasts for 2023 have improved in recent months (+2.4%), although uncertainties have clouded the horizon and have denied the most optimistic forecasts.
As a result, both trade and GDP in 2023 will be below their averages of 2.6% and 2.7% growth, respectively, in the last twelve years.
The organization took the opportunity to recall that trade is a resilience force for the world economy, for which reason governments must avoid trade fragmentationas well as lifting barriers to imports and exports.
Already the 2.7% growth in trade last year was lower than what economists had calculated and this was mainly a consequence of the lousy results for the October-December quarter, affected by the increase in the price of basic products, more severe monetary policies to contain inflation and the outbreak of covid in China.
This latest episode of the pandemic disrupted production and trade with China, which later decided to terminate that stage, lift all anti-covid measures and reopen its economy to the world.
In 2023, the estimated growth of 1.7% of international trade is, however, better than expected precisely thanks to the foreseeable increase in the demand for consumer goods in China, once the pandemic was left behind.
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The chief economist of the WTO, Ralph OssaOn the other hand, he said that the increases in interest rates in the largest economies have exposed deficiencies in the banking systems that, if not corrected, could lead to greater financial instability, and that governments and regulatory bodies must be in warning in the coming months.
All these factors make forecasts for 2024 are more uncertain than usual. For now, experts consider that world trade could pick up up to 3.2% and that GDP could progress by 2.6%.