(Xinhua/Ma Ruxuan)
Geneva, October 7 (Xinhua) – The World Trade Organization (WTO) noted its forecast for global trade in the global goods for 2025 to 2.4% on Tuesday, compared to 0.9% in its previous estimate in August. At the same time, the forecast for 2026 was revised downwards, going from 1.8% to 0.5%.
According to the latest WTO report entitled “Global Trade Perspectives and Statistics”, world GDP is expected to increase by 2.7% in 2025 and 2.6% in 2026.
The report indicates that the volume of the global trade in goods, measured by the average exports and imports, increased by 4.9% in annual sliding during the first half of this year.
The WTO attributes these good results to several factors, in particular the anticipation of imports to North America before the planned increase in American customs duties, disinflation and favorable budgetary policies, solid growth of emerging markets and the sharp increase in the trade in goods linked to artificial intelligence.
Trade between developing economies has also experienced a significant increase. The value of the South-South trade increased by 8% in annual sliding in the first half of 2025, exceeding the growth of 6% of the overall value of world trade.
The AI products, including semiconductors, servers and telecommunications equipment, played a particularly important role, representing almost half of the total trade growth during the same period of six months. The commercial value of these products jumped 20% in annual shift.
(Xinhua/Ma Ruxuan)
During a press conference, the director general of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said that despite the “winds” linked to the unilateral measures taken by the United States and the unprecedented increase in commercial policy, trade has shown resilience. She stressed that this resilience highlights the fact that the multilateral trade system continues to work well.
The report indicates that the main risk of prospects is the spread of restrictive commercial measures and political uncertainty to more savings and sectors.
It warns that the increase in import prices and the slowdown in commercial expeditions could announce higher inflation by the end of the year, as stocks decrease in the sectors strongly affected by customs duties.
According to the report, commercial performance vary considerably from one region to another. Asia and Africa is expected to record the fastest export growth in 2025, while Europe will likely experience slower growth and North America will be faced with a drop in exports.
The report also notes that the growth in service exports, although indirectly affected by customs duties, should slow down, from 6.8% in 2024 to 4.6% in 2025, then to 4.4% in 2026.
Europe is expected to be at the top of the growth of exports of services in 2025, followed by Asia, the Middle East and the Community of Independent States (CEI), adds the WTO report. END
(Xinhua/Ma Ruxuan)
