World Trade Still in the Dull Drums - ING
Raoul Leering, Head of International Trade Analysis at ING, explained
that global trade declined in March and during the first quarter but
global industrial production increased.
Key Quotes:
“World trade is still in the dull drums. The volume of trade in goods fell by 0.5% in March,
according to today’s data release by The Netherlands Bureau of Policy
Analysis (CPB). Although the figure for February has been revised up by
0.2 percentage point to 1.3%, world trade has declined 1.7% during the first quarter compared to the last quarter of 2015.”
“While world trade declined, global industrial production actually
increased by 0.3% in the first quarter. The steady increase in
industrial production leads us to believe that world trade will continue
to expand during 2016, albeit at a very modest pace.”
“A return to growth rates for trade that are 1.5 – 2.0 times as high as
world GDP growth, as was common in the fifteen years before the start of
the crisis, is not likely. To return to faster growth in trade than
total output, the current rise in protectionism needs to be reversed,
the expansion of global value chains needs to speed up and the world
economy needs a real upturn, so that the pro-cyclical effect on trade
can take its course.”
