Key Statistics and Trends in International Trade 2015

As of 2014 the trends in international trade were largely driven by the sluggish economic growth and the persisting economic and political turmoil in various part of the world. From 2011 to 2014 world trade grew at a rate of less than 2 per cent per year, notably slower than in the pre-recession period. World trade has further slowed down during the last year with only marginal growth and mostly related to an increase in the trade of services.

The trade slowdown has affected all geographic regions, but by varying degrees. In general, while trade flows among major economies have continued to increase, albeit at a very low pace, trade relating to smaller countries has been generally stagnant and has often shrunk. South-South trade performance has also been anemic, except for trade relating to East Asia and in particular China. In terms of export performance, countries in East Asia, Central America and East Africa generally fared better than their peers. At the sectoral level, trade in manufacturing has grown relatively faster than agriculture since 2011. During the same period, the value of trade in natural resources has declined. Similarly, trade growth in consumer products has outperformed growth in intermediates and in primary products.

This report is structured in three parts. The first part presents an analysis of the extent, causes and implications of the ongoing trade slowdown. The second part provides illustrative statistics on international trade in goods and services covering the last 10 years. Trade statistics are provided at various levels of aggregation illustrating the evolution of trade across economic sectors and geographic regions. The third part of this report presents some of the most commonly used trade indicators at the country level, so as to illustrate trade performance across countries.

The Trade Slowdown

One of the stylized facts of the last few decades is that international trade has been growing at a very fast pace. Driven by favorable policies, technological innovation and business models bringing down the costs of cross-border transactions, international trade in goods and services added about 20 trillion US$ during the last 25 years, going from about 4 trillion US$ in 1990 to about 24 trillion US$ in 2014. Such expansion in world trade was both the result of sustained economic growth and of the strong increase in economic interdependence among countries. The consequence is that world trade increased at a much faster pace than global output or gross world product (GWP) going from about 20 percent of GWP in the early 1990s to more than 30 percent nowadays. This statistic possibly represents the clearest indicator of the globalization process experienced by the world economy in the last few decades.

The trade slowdown of the last three years has been widespread across most of the developing and developed countries. Average trade growth rates for
all regions are now very low and just a fraction of what they were in the pre-crisis period. Among developing countries the trade slowdown reached all regions including the Asian powerhouses as well as more peripheral regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Trade growth rates have been generally negative for the Transition Economies and on average close to zero for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The weak trade performance is reflected in the much lower trade elasticities for all regions. For instance, while trade was growing 60 percent faster than GDP in East Asia before the recession, it grew 40 percent slower than GDP after 2011. Latin America is the only region where trade outpaced GDP growth in the post-crisis period, although at a substantially lower rate.

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Key Statistics and Trends in Trade Policy 2015

In focus: Preferential Trade Agreements

During the last decade international trade has been characterized by a progressive shift in the use of trade policy instruments. While tariff protection remains an important instrument only in certain sectors and/or for a limited number of countries, the use of other, non-tariff trade restrictive, measures has become more widespread. The years after the latest global economic and financial crisis have also been characterized by movements in the exchange rates and episodes of competitive devaluation, which have had important repercussions on international trade flows.

As of 2014, around one-third of world trade was free under most-favoured-nation (MFN) regimes, with an additional third exempt from tariffs due to preferential access. Still, tariffs remain relatively high and tariff peaks continue to affect important sectors, including some of key interest to low income countries such as agriculture, apparel, textiles and leather products. Tariffs also remain quite restrictive for most South-South trade.

International trade is increasingly regulated and influenced by a wide array of policies and instruments reaching beyond tariffs. Technical measures and requirements regulate about two-thirds of world trade, while various forms of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) are applied to almost the totality of agricultural trade. The past few years have also seen a general increase in the use of trade defence measures within the WTO framework.

In spite of the economic crisis, the process of deeper economic integration has remained strong at a regional and bilateral level, with an increasing number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) being negotiated and implemented. PTAs increasingly address not only goods but also services and often deal with rules beyond reciprocal tariff concessions to cover a wide range of behind the border issues. One effect of the proliferation of PTAs is that they distort international competitiveness by providing different trading partners with different market access conditions. This has repercussions for many lower income countries as their preferential margins erode and their competitiveness in international markets declines.

The economic turbulence of recent years has been reflected in exchange rate markets, both for developing and developed countries’ currencies. Exchange rate movements are playing an important role in shaping international trade in the post crisis period, as they have influenced countries’ external competitiveness.

This report is structured in two parts. The first part presents an overview of the extent, causes and implications the proliferation of preferential trade agreement. The second part provides illustrative statistics on trade policy instruments. The second part is divided in five chapters: tariffs, trade agreements, non-tariff measures, trade defence measures, and exchange rates. Trade statistics are provided at various levels of
aggregation illustrating the use of the trade policy measures across economic sectors and geographic regions.

» Download: Key Statistics and Trends in Trade Policy 2015 (PDF, 5.69 MB)

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Key Statistics and Trends in International Trade 2015 and Key Statistics and Trends in Trade Policy 2015 are the third edition of a series initiated in 2013. The reports are a product of the Trade Analysis Branch (TAB), Division on International Trade in Goods and Services, and Commodities (DITC), UNCTAD Secretariat. The series is part of a larger effort by UNCTAD to analyze trade-related issues of particular importance for developing countries, as requested by the Doha Mandate of UNCTAD XIII.