World trade was 5% higher in June than before the pandemic

The volume of world trade was in June of the current year 5% higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, reported the Office for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) of the Netherlands.

Overall, world merchandise trade appears to be stabilizing, with a modest 0.5% growth in June compared to May, after a 0.7% decline the previous month.

For the CPB, this appears to signal the end of the vigorous recovery in world trade in goods, after reversing severely last year with the outbreak of the pandemic crisis.

Globally, the momentum of the recovery remains strong amid continued supply constraints.

Purchasing Managers Index data for June shows historically high levels for the second quarter of 2021 as a whole.

At the same time, the European Central Bank (ECB) noted, growth momentum slowed somewhat in June as activity normalized somewhat in several key economies.

World trade

Trade in goods remains strong despite growing headwinds on supply bottlenecks.

With respect to global inflation developments, price pressures increased further, driven largely by transitory factors such as base effects and pandemic-related supply constraints.

Looking ahead, the evolution of the pandemic remains a source of uncertainty for the global economic recovery and may lead to an increasingly uneven growth trajectory between countries.

So far, the pandemic and the containment it adopted have led to economic disruptions around the world, prompting significant government interventions to support businesses.

Anticipating the negative consequences of restrictions imposed around the world, governments rapidly deployed a set of diverse tools to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the business sector.