A new Asia-Pacific free trade agreement set to enter into force on 1 January 2022 will create the world’s largest trading bloc by economic size, according to an UNCTAD study published this week. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) includes 15 East Asian and Pacific nations of different economic sizes and stages of development. They are Australia, […]
Commodity dependence increased over the last decade from 93 countries in 2008–2009 to 101 in 2018–2019, according to UNCTAD’s State of Commodity Dependence 2021 report released this week. The nominal value of world commodity exports reached $4.38 trillion in 2018–2019, a 20% increase compared with 2008–2009, the report shows. “Commodity dependence makes countries more vulnerable to negative […]
Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are expected to bottom out in 2021 and recover some lost ground with an increase of 10% to 15%, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2021 released Monday. FDI flows plunged globally by 35% in 2020, to $1 trillion from $1.5 trillion the previous year, the report says. Lockdowns caused […]
India, China and South Africa have fared “relatively better” than other major economies in imports and exports in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest UN data which said that global trade recovery from the COVID-19 crisis hit a record high during in the same period. The Global Trade Update by the […]
World trade’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis hit a record high in the first quarter of 2021, increasing by 10% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter, according to UNCTAD’s Global Trade Update. According to the report, the impressive rebound in Q1 2021 continued to be driven by the strong export performance of East Asian economies, whose early success […]
The global market for cashews is booming, but the African countries growing more than half the world’s supply aren’t cashing in, an UNCTAD report says, due to their lack of processing industries. Between 2000 and 2018, world trade in raw cashew nuts more than doubled to 2.1 billion kilograms, and African producers – led by […]
The COVID-19 crisis has been both an accelerator and a decelerator for already rooted trends in the global economy. On the downside, the pandemic hit amidst widening inequality, declining economic prospects, mounting vulnerabilities to climate change, and a weakened multilateralism. On the upside, expanding the transformative productive capacities of all could form the core of […]
Global trade recorded a 5% drop in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, according to an UNCTAD report. This marks an improvement on the 19% year-on-year plunge recorded in the second quarter, and the frail recovery is expected to continue in the fourth quarter, with a preliminary forecast […]
Global efforts to put the world on a more sustainable and prosperous path will continue to frustrate policy makers, unless action is taken simultaneously on five man-made mega-trends including climate change, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The chief economists in the United Nations system jointly identified the other challenges as […]
Global commodity exports to China could plunge by 46 per cent between $15.5 and $33.1 billion in 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis, according to research by the UN trade body. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that the findings raise concerns for economies that rely on exports of primary goods, such […]
