WTO: Global trade slowdown this year not likely to witness worst-case scenario of 32% decline

WTO provides their latest take on the global trade outlook

WTO
  • Trade would only need to grow 2.5% per quarter to reach optimistic scenario
  • Rapid government aid helped to avoid worst-case downturn in trade
  • Sees trade growth in 2021 more in the range of 5% to 20%
For some context, the WTO back in April envisaged global trade to fall somewhere between 13% to 32% on either a optimistic scenario or a worst-case scenario at the time.
There’s nothing much in this but it just adds to the narrative that the economic outlook set out back in March, April were slightly on the more pessimistic side of things. That said, it doesn’t take away the fact that we will still see dire conditions in the months ahead.