The world economy has almost recovered from the COVID-19 disaster. The trade of goods and services turned a corner since the beginning of last year. Developed countries have seen record growth. In this situation, in 2021, global trade has crossed the milestone of 28 lac crore dollars. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said this in a recent report on its website. However, the organisation fears that global trade may slow down this year for various reasons.
In a report titled Global Trade Update, UNCTAD said that global trade had reached a record 28 lacs and 50 thousand crore dollars last year after being hit by the pandemic. This amount is 25% more than the previous year. It is also 13% more than 2019.
In 2021, the trade of both goods and services was on the rise. In the fourth quarter of last year (October-December), the goods trade reached about 5 lacs and 80 thousand crore dollars. This amount of goods traded is more than any previous quarter. At the same time, the service trade also crossed the pre-COVID-19 stage and reached 1 lac and 60 thousand crore dollars.
This positive trend in world trade was mainly due to rising commodity prices, easing of COVID-19 related restrictions, and the result of the strong recovery of demand due to financial incentives. However, these trends are likely to slow down in the coming months. Nonetheless, UNCTAD hopes that the international trade trend will return to normal this year. According to the organisation, world trade could be negatively impacted in 2022 for a variety of reasons. These include slower-than-expected economic growth, disruptions to the ongoing supply chain, growing concerns about the sustainability of credit, a move towards a greener world economy, trade agreements, and trade regionalisation.
