Growth of world trade in the I quarter of this year has not met expectations. Sluggish increase suggests that a full-scale recovery is still too early to say, although the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers, which became the beginning of the global crisis marker, passed 6 years, the newspaper Financial Times.
The volume of world trade has increased in the last quarter only 2.2% in terms of annual growth, confirmed by the data of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). WTO is expected that in 2014 the growth rate of 4.7% and will be the most significant in the last 5 years. In terms of value (U.S. $) World trade grew by 1.5% compared with the same period a year earlier.
World exports seasonally adjusted increased in January-March by 0.5% compared with the previous three months, imports rose by the same value.
Last month, the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) has warned of reducing the world’s foreign trade by 0.8%. In turn, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said reducing exports from the “Big Seven” and BRIC as a whole by 2.6% during the period.
It is worth noting that both developed and developing markets rely on foreign trade as a means to strengthen the economy, but in this sector are not met their expectations, emphasizes FT.
At the same time, UNCTAD, OECD and WTO announced the introduction of protectionist measures in the states “Big Twenty”. Within six months to mid-May, these countries have introduced 112 foreign trade restrictions aimed at protecting the economy against 116 restrictions, reduction is extremely slow.
Since autumn 2008 the protectionist measures spread to 4.1% of world trade, or about $ 750 billion annually. It is noteworthy that from 1185 the restrictions of reference for this time, in May 2014 are 79%.
In fact, protectionism is contrary to the statements on the need to liberalize world trade. EU, U.S., Japan and other countries have been negotiating on regional and sectoral agreements on free trade.
