The Latest World Trade Organization Report: Global Trade in Goods Continues To Pick Up(1)

The latest World Trade Organization report: global trade in goods continues to pick up(1)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) released the latest issue of the "Barometer of Trade in Goods" on May 28, showing that global trade in goods will continue to recover in 2021 after a short and sharp drop in the second quarter of last year due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

It is understood that the "Barometer of Trade in Goods" regularly released by the WTO has been regarded as a comprehensive leading indicator of global trade. The current barometer reading for this period is 109.7, which is nearly 10 points higher than the benchmark value of 100 and an increase of 21.6 points year-on-year. This reading reflects the strong recovery of global trade in goods under the epidemic situation, and indirectly reflects the depth of the impact of the epidemic on global trade in goods last year.

In the most recent month, all sub-indices of the current barometer indicators are above the trend level and are on the rise, highlighting the widespread recovery of global trade in goods and the accelerating pace of trade expansion. Among the sub-indices, export orders (114.8), air freight (111.1) and electronic components (115.2) led the rise. Their indices are highly consistent with the recent growth forecast of global trade in goods; given that consumer confidence is closely related to the sales of durable goods, The strong indexes of automotive products (105.5) and agricultural raw materials (105.4) reflect improved consumer confidence. The strong performance of the container shipping industry (106.7) was particularly impressive, showing that global shipping remained in good condition during the epidemic.