By ANDREW OJIEZEL
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has announced expansion in global trade by 2.4 per cent this year, recovering from its tepid performance in 2016.
The WTO Director-General, Roberto Azevedo who made this known statement this week, said: “global economic growth has been unbalanced since the financial crisis, but for the first time in several years all regions of the world economy should experience a synchronized upturn in 2017.”
“This could reinforce growth and provide an additional boost to trade.”
In the same vein, WTO warned that policy shocks could easily undermine the positive trends.
“The unpredictable direction of the global economy in the near term and the lack of clarity about government action on monetary, fiscal and trade policies raises the risk that trade activity will be stifled,” said the WTO.
According to the report, a spike in inflation leading to higher interest rates, tighter fiscal policies and the imposition of measures to curtail trade could all undermine higher trade growth over the next two years.
Global trade grew by “an unusually low” 1.3 per cent in 2016, the slowest pace since the financial crisis, failing to match even the revised forecast of 1.7 per cent of last September.
Further, Azevedo stated that “The poor performance over the year was largely due to a significant slowdown in emerging markets where imports basically stagnated last year, barely growing in volume terms.”
In 2018, global trade is forecast to grow by between 2.1 per cent and 4 per cent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also signaled positive trends on Wednesday, saying that after six years of disappointing growth, the world economy is gaining momentum.
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