Will global trade pick up significantly this year?
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Global trade contracted by about 12 percent in 2009 but has started to pick up, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Pascal Lamy said. The WTO has revised its previous estimate of a contraction of about 10 percent in 2009 but declined to give a forecast for 2010.
Whether the pick-up in global trade is short term or sustainable is difficult to say.
“World trade has also been a casualty of this global economic crisis, contracting by about 12 percent in 2009,” Lamy said. He added that it’s a huge drop and the sharpest decline since the end of World War Two.
Asked about world trade in 2010, he declined to give any figure but said: “Certainly there is a pick-up. Whether this pick-up is short term or sustainable is difficult to say but we certainly are picking up.”
Lamy told a meeting organized by the European Policy Center think-tank that opening global trade offered a way out of the crisis and that it was “economically imperative” to conclude the Doha round of talks on a new global commerce pact.
So it seems global trade is picking up but even experts are not sure if it will continue to do so this year? What do you think? Will world trade pick-up this year? If so, how much do you forecast? Or is the rise we have seen so far this year just a temporary increase that will start declining again?
(Photo: Vita Vanaga Photo Xpress)
