Brussels, 20/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - The world's top 20 economies established 112 new restrictive trade measures between mid-November 2013 and mid-May 2014 - compared with 116 in the previous sixth-month period, states the WTO in its latest sixth-monthly joint report with the OECD and UNCTAD on G20 trade and investment measures. The report was published on 18 June.
Over half the newly-adopted restrictive measures take the form of complaints lodged at the WTO (66), and nearly a quarter are restrictions to imports (25). The report states that the import restrictions adopted by the G20 countries over the sixth-month period until mid-May affected 0.2% of world merchandise imports, and 0.3% of G20 merchandise imports.
In total, only 251 measures were removed out of the 1,185 protectionist measures adopted by the G20 countries since the start of the crisis in 2008. In mid-May, 934 measures remained in place in these countries - up by 78 from the end of the last reporting period. Cumulatively since 2008, the import restrictions affect 4.1% of world merchandise imports and around 5.2% of G20 imports. Electrical equipment, pharmaceuticals, cereals, meat and vegetables are the sectors most affected by these recent restrictions.
The WTO report welcomes the increase observed in the number of trade liberalisation or facilitation measures over the last six months compared with the previous reporting period (93 measures compared with 57). While the number of restrictive measures still outstrips the number of liberalisation measures taken over the last six months, the liberalisation measures now represent a larger share of all recorded measures (45%) than in the previous period (33%). The liberalisation measures introduced in the last six months cover almost 0.4% of world merchandise imports and 0.6% of G20 merchandise imports.
The WTO is reasonably optimistic about the evolution of world trade and states that, if the latest growth forecasts come about, the volume of trade in merchandise in the world should progress by 4.7% in 2014 and by 5.3% in 2015. This is up in comparison with the 2.1% recorded in 2013, but still below the average growth rate of 6% recorded during the two decades that preceded the great crisis of 2008. (EH)