Major increase in world trade in 2010. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is anticipating an upturn in world trade of 10% or more for the year 2010, having originally calculated an upturn of 9.5% back in March. This higher increase than expected is believed to be down to continued dynamism in China and other countries. This, however, needs to be taken back to 2009 and therefore to very low levels. The latest WTO report particularly takes stock of the black year in which world trade recorded results of -12.2%, an unprecedented result since the Second World War. The worst-hit countries were Japan (-24.9%), Europe (-14.8%) and the United States (-13.9%). The regions which came out of it the best were the oil-exporting regions such as the Middle East (-4.9%), Africa (-5.6%) and South and Central America (-5.7%). Asia's decline was certainly considerable (-11.1%) but less than the global average. (I.L./transl.fl)