Trade trends during the last three years have been greatly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
During 2020, the economic disruptions brought about by COVID-19 resulted in a decline of international trade in goods and services. However, as global demand resumed, international trade strongly rebounded in 2021 and further increased during 2022.
Overall, the value of global trade is expected to be about 25 per cent higher in 2022 than it was in 2019.
A substantial part of the increase in the value of trade during the last two years can be explained by rising commodity prices and more recently by general inflation.
Trade volumes grew to a smaller extent. Even so, the steady increase in the volume of international trade since early 2021 indicates a robust global demand for traded goods.
This report is structured into two parts.
Part 1: Trends in International Trade, presents a short-term overview of the status of international trade using preliminary statistics on merchandise trade until the first half of 2022.
Part 2: Trade Indicators, provides illustrative statistics on international trade in goods and services covering the medium term.
The second part is divided into two sections.
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Section 1 provides trade statistics at various levels of aggregation that illustrates the evolution of trade across economic sectors and geographic regions.
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Section 2 presents trade indicators to inform on some specifics of the trade patterns at the country level.
