Okonjo-Iweala Advises Governments against Introducing Obstacles to Trade

•WTO expects volume of world merchandise trade to grow by 1.7% this year

Dike Onwuamaeze and Oluchi Chibuzor

The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has asked governments to avoid trade fragmentation as well as obstacles to trade.

Okonjo-Iweala, made the call in a statement issued by the WTO to announce its “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics” for 2023.

She said: “Trade continues to be a force for resilience in the global economy, but it will remain under pressure from external factors in 2023. This makes it even more important for governments to avoid trade fragmentation and refrain from introducing obstacles to trade.

“Investing in multilateral cooperation on trade, as WTO members did at our Twelfth Ministerial Conference last June, would bolster economic growth and people’s living standards over the long term. “

The WTO projected that growth in global trade would slow to 1.7 per cent in 2023, after a 2.7 per cent expansion recorded in 2022.

It stated that the 1.7 per cent forecast for trade growth in 2023, was up from the previous estimate of one per cent from last October.

A key factor here, according to the WTO, was the relaxation of COVID-19 pandemic controls in China, which was expected to unleash pent-up consumer demand in the country, in turn boosting international trade.

It said: “Global trade growth in 2023 is still expected to be subpar despite a slight upgrade to GDP projections since last fall. Weighed down by the effects of the war in Ukraine, stubbornly high inflation, tighter monetary policy and financial market uncertainty, the volume of world merchandise trade is expected to grow by 1.7 per cent this year, following 2.7 per cent growth in 2022, a smaller-than-expected increase that was pulled down by a sharp slump in the fourth quarter.”

The WTO’s trade projections, set out in the new “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics” report, estimated real global GDP growth at market exchange rates of 2.4 per cent for 2023, while projections for both trade and output growth are below the averages for the past 12 years of 2.6 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively.

The WTO Chief Economist, Mr. Ralph Ossa, said: “The lingering effects of COVID-19 and the rising geopolitical tensions were the main factors impacting trade and output in 2022, and this is likely to be the case in 2023 as well.

“Interest rate hikes in advanced economies have also revealed weaknesses in banking systems that could lead to wider financial instability if left unchecked. Governments and regulators need to be alert to these and other financial risks in the coming months.”

He added that, “looking ahead to 2024, trade growth should rebound to 3.2 per cent, as GDP picks up to 2.6 per cent, but this estimate is more uncertain than usual due to the presence of substantial downside risks, including geopolitical tensions, food supply shocks, and the possibility of unforeseen fallout from monetary tightening.”

The WTO further stated that the 2.7 per cent increase in world trade volume in 2022, was weaker than its October 2022 forecast of 3.5 per cent, as a sharper-than-expected quarter-on-quarter decline in the fourth quarter of 2022 dragged down growth for the year.

“Several factors contributed to that slump, including elevated global commodity prices, monetary policy tightening in response to inflation, and outbreaks of COVID 19 that disrupted production and trade in China.

“Notably, trade growth last year turned out to be in line with the 2.4 per cent to 3.0 per cent baseline scenario in the WTO’s March 2022 initial report on the war in Ukraine, and well above its more pessimistic scenario in which trade would have grown just 0.5 per cent as countries started to split into competing economic blocs. In the event, international markets remained broadly open,” the WTO said.