For about five years, global trade in goods and services has stopped growing at twice the rate of world GDP, a regularity that had characterized the previous thirty years. In 2016 the slowdown in world trade it could be worse than estimated by the International Monetary Fund last July and bring the ratio between the two quantities below unity.
According to the WTO, in July 2016 the dollar value of goods exported globally fell by 6,8% compared to the same month of the previous year, and by 5,7% compared to June 2016. The situation does not appear better if we consider the first seven months of the year: in this case the decline is around 5,4% compared to the same period of 2015. The foreign sales of all the main exporters show a negative trend: in China the decline was 7,3%, in the United States of 6,4%.
The confirmation of now structural nature of the slowdown also comes from complementary indicators: in May 2016, the RWI/ISL Container Throughout index, which measures the degree of use of containers in the world's most important ports, reached its lowest value since the end of 2013. In June, 85% of respondents to a worldwide periodic survey on the level of confidence of major shippers said they expect traffic equal or lower than the same period in 2015 by the end of the year.
In recent months, one has been added to the long list of explanations for the reasons for the slowdown lack of recovery in global investment the fundamental element.
In the context of the general slowdown in world exports, Italy maintains its ninth position among the main exporting countries. The drop in sales abroad that has characterized our country since the beginning of the year appears to be less marked than the world one and mainly due to a drop in sales outside the EU. On the other hand, sales to traditional customers, above all, remain France e Germany.
Download the full document of the Focus Bnl.
