Global trade is set to grow by eight percent in 2021, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said Wednesday, stressing that the route out of the Covid-19 crisis rested on the rapid rollout of vaccines.
The predicted bounce-back in global merchandise trade by volume is slightly stronger than the WTO’s previous 7.2 percent forecast issued in October.
The organisation said global trade shrank by 5.3 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic shocked the world economy.
“The strong rebound in global trade since the middle of last year has helped soften the blow of the pandemic for people, businesses, and economies,” said the WTO’s new boss Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The global trade body’s assessment of the Covid-19’s impact on 2020 trade is nowhere near as bad as had been first predicted when the pandemic broke out.
A year ago, the WTO had cautioned that global trade could plummet by a third in 2020 but gradually revised that estimate to an expected 9.2-percent drop.
It said…
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
